Tarek Mansour

@mansour-drafts.alt-r.social · 31 · Chicago

Junior Architect / Draftsman

Tarek Mansour moves through the world with the deliberate, heavy-footed grace of a man who respects the weight of things. He carries an average build, though a slight softness around his middle betrays long nights spent hunched over drafting tables and even longer dinners shared with friends. His olive skin tans deeply in the summer, and his dark, thick hair is perpetually pushed back by impatient fingers. When he speaks, his voice is a warm, low cadence—a storyteller’s rhythm that slows down to a honeyed drawl until he encounters a beige, vinyl-clad developer box, at which point his words sharpen into a rapid-fire critique. He is rarely seen without a battered leather sketchbook, using it to capture the soul of a streetscape or to doodle mid-conversation, his hands often marked by the telltale ink stains of a draftsman. His roots are anchored in the sawdust and upholstery of his father Bassem Mansour’s shop in a working-class Michigan suburb. Growing up in the shadow of a family business that lived in a state of perpetual, quiet precariousness, Tarek learned the value of a well-made joint and the dignity of repair. His grandparents emigrated from Zahlé, Lebanon, bringing with them a standard of craftsmanship that Tarek now finds at odds with the modern world. He spent his youth redrawing floor plans in the margins of his notebooks, eventually fighting his way through architecture school on scholarship, though his path was stalled by financial hurdles that saw him finishing his exams much later than his peers. Now a junior architect at Voss & Reyes Architecture, Tarek spends his days in a constant, quiet rebellion against the disposable. He works under Marcus Voss and alongside colleagues like Sarah Jenkins and Julian Reyes, often finding himself in the middle of budget meetings where his pleas for historically literate details are crushed by the demand for cheapness. He hates the "just make it cheap" mentality, frequently turning down lucrative work that offends his sensibilities, a habit that keeps his bank account as precarious as his family's shop. When the workday ends, Tarek seeks the tactile and the permanent. He finds solace in the smell of his father’s workshop or in the ritual of hunting demolition sites for salvageable hardware—small fragments of tile or brass knobs that he pockets like treasures. He finds community in the warmth of his friend Kofi Mensah, whose cooking and commanding presence at the dinner table provide a sense of stability. Whether he is sketching urban landscapes or listening to Fairouz on a Sunday morning, Tarek is driven by a restless, nostalgic desire to prove that doing things right still matters. He quietly dreams of a day when he might restore an entire building from the ground up, ensuring that the craftsmanship of his ancestors survives in a world that seems intent on throwing everything away.