Lebanese designer Dia Mrad, founder of Post Design Studio, has been awarded the Product Design prize at the Design Doha Prize 2026 for his project PSI-01 (Power Supply Indicator). Presented during a ceremony at the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha on November 7, the award recognises a project that transforms one of Lebanon’s most persistent everyday challenges into an exploration of design, function and infrastructure.
Developed in Beirut in 2025, PSI-01 is a fully functioning instrument that reveals which source of electricity is powering a home at any given moment. Whether solar energy, a private generator, the public electricity grid (EDL), or no electricity at all, the device translates these changing conditions through illuminated displays, colour-coded lamps and an audible outage alert.
Standing 2.4 metres tall, the welded-steel structure is finished in a bold Traffic Yellow, borrowing its visual language from industrial control equipment. Its imposing scale turns an otherwise invisible system into a physical presence, reflecting the daily negotiations that define life in Lebanon, where access to electricity often depends on navigating multiple sources of power.
For Mrad, the project is part of a wider investigation into the infrastructures that shape everyday experiences and the relationship between the built environment and those who inhabit it. His earlier project, Power Shifts, presented at the Sharjah Architecture Triennial in 2023, explored similar questions through photography. With PSI-01, first unveiled at We Design Beirut in 2025, that research evolves into a functional object, bringing together observation, technology and design.
“PSI is a living indicator; it records the negotiation between systems that define daily life in Beirut,” says Mrad.
More than a practical device, PSI-01 exists at the intersection of product design, sculpture and installation. By making the complexities of Lebanon’s electricity infrastructure visible within the domestic space, Mrad invites viewers to reconsider the systems they depend on and the realities those systems reveal.
As the first piece in a developing family of objects by Post Design Studio, PSI-01 signals an evolving approach to design, one that places everyday realities at the centre of creative exploration.
With this recognition, Dia Mrad brings a distinctly Lebanese perspective to the international design conversation, demonstrating how even the most familiar challenges can become catalysts for innovation and meaningful design.
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