“I love to build things by hand,” George says, recalling back to his childhood in Cairo, Egypt, where he was never without his Legos. Then came a Kodak camera, where he found himself focusing his photography on buildings rather than people. He then enrolled in the Faculty of Fine Arts in Cairo to study architecture, and began practicing in 1988. He’s built most of his career in the United States since he and his wife moved to Seattle in to be close to extended family in 1994, and he’s become a specialist in transit and infrastructure as well as mixed-use residential design. George works closely with Sound Transit and serves as project manager for tunnel and elevated-station projects but is also experienced with at-grade and open-cut designs. Designing networks that move thousands of people per hour, he says, is energizing because “it is massive. It’s extremely complicated. It gets all your brain power working. It is complex and visible.” Mixed-use residential is equally satisfying, he adds, because “at the end of the day, we all go somewhere that we call home.”

Our Perkins Eastman

George is a founding member of the culture club Perkins Eastman’s Seattle studio, where he serves on its steering committee. He also spearheaded a professional development group so senior members of the studio can share their knowledge with emerging professionals and those in their mid-career. Outside of work, he’s an active member of St. Mary’s Coptic Orthodox Church, where he designed its current sanctuary in Lynnwood, WA.