The office is a collaboration between four partners of multidisciplinary and multicultural backgrounds: Meriem Chabani (Algeria, France), Etienne Chobaux (France), John Edom (Great Britain) and Maya Nemeta (France).

Making use of an anthropological approach, the practice engages with territories in tension: designing and building in post- and neo-colonial contexts through a dual approach of negotiation and representation. The work of New South focuses on the revitalisation of post-industrial cities, the interaction between sacred and secular space, and housing solutions for a globalised context. Each project is the subject of a critical practice that seeks to open up spaces that speak to power, engaging with political, social, linguistic and economic parameters as integral to each project's design process.

The office was the recipient of a 2014 LafargeHolcim Next Generation Award, the 2017 winner of Europan 14 on the site of Guebwiller, France, and named as an Expert by the Federation Nationale des Agences d'Urbanisme in preparation for the Africa-France Summit. In 2018, the installation, If Algae Mattered, a theoretical reworking of Mediterranean borders, was exhibited at the Fourth Istanbul Design Biennial. In 2020, the office was the recipient of a Europe 40 Under 40 award, given by The European Centre for Architecture and The Chicago Athenaeum.