Teaching

MODERN ARCHITECTURE _ A DECENTERED HISTORY

Seminar

2022
School of Architecture & Environment
University of Oregon, Eugene

In his seminal short essay, “Theses on the Philosophy of History”, Walter Benjamin, twentieth-century philosopher and critical theorist, wrote that “to articulate what is past does not mean to recognize ‘how it really was.’ It means to take control of a memory, as it flashes in a moment of danger.” We can choose to ignore history, or we can approach it through a highly critical and analytical lens. The decision is political, writes Richard Wittman, cultural historian interested in the emergence of modern configurations of space, society, and publicness.  

Familiarization with history of buildings and cities provides us with an opportunity to not just critically analyze the problems and solutions of the past, but understand and address the multitude of challenges facing our built and natural environments today. In keeping with this premise, this seminar traces the origin and evolution of influential ideas and movements in architecture that have been adopted around the world since the turn of the 20th century, albeit with emphasis on social and ecological impacts - and without romantic accounts of traditionally idealized masters and masterpieces, styles and canons. 

What led to these ideas and movements? Where exactly did they emerge? How did they become global? And how have they shaped - and continue to shape - both human and non-human life in a rapidly changing world? Engagement with postcolonial theories will play an important role in addressing some of these questions.

The seminar begins with an introduction to pressing issues around the study of architectural history in the last two decades, before discussing modernity as not only an era of philosophical, political, economic, socio-cultural, and technological change beginning in Western Europe and North America, but also a means for western power, control and hegemony over the rest of the world. It will then discuss modernism as a social, cultural, and artistic attitude within modernity, before turning attention to a range of architectural ideas and movements that emerged out of this attitude, including but not limited to Bauhaus, Rationalism, Structuralism, Postmodernism, Brutalism, Situationist International, Deconstruction, High Tech, Critical Regionalism, and Sustainability. 

The seminar concludes with deliberations on contemporary architectural trends and directions in South Asia, Southeast Asia, East Asia, West Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Latin America, and North America.

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ON ARCHITECTURES OF NEOLIBERAL NOPLACE

Seminar

2022
Materialist, Anticolonial, and Diasporic Studies
GCAS-Jehan / Taught online with Daniel H. Neilson

We have always been told that the state is here to tame the excesses of the market. But whenever the state abandons and displaces, we find the market right there as saviour, acting like the god that won’t fail us. 

Curiously, it is in the latter script that one actually sees clearly the geopolitical ontologies of space and place. Far from being in opposition, markets and states are engaged in a constant act of mutual production: markets evoke states to enforce colonizing claims; states construct markets to appropriate surplus at a distance. 

The narrative and cartography of such acts of co-creation of subjects and their lifeworlds can be found in places that mediate between markets and states, thinking in particular of extraction of labor and resources, surveillance, exchange, the postcolonial city, and neo-nationalist narratives of conservation and isolation that have become salvific in the midst of the pandemic. Summoning the history and theory of architecture, cartography, and political economy together, the course follows, among other guides and companions, Elizabeth Povinelli’s tip to explore the “urban intensions of geontopower,” and the imperative to bring the history of the state and the history of the market together to understand lifeworlds in a way that challenges both the condescending secular and salvationist narrative in relation to subjects, as well as the uncritical relation to geopolitical narratives of empire and sovereignty as counter to neoliberalism.

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FINDING FORM _ CONVERSATIONS ON PLACE, PLACELESSNESS, AND PRODUCTION OF SPACE

Seminar

2022
School of Architecture & Environment
University of Oregon, Eugene

Spaces we design do not float in a vacuum. They instead exist at the intersection of multiple contextual realities, ranging between human and natural, tangible and intangible. Together, these realities define place, or simply an area or region of the world that we may or may not inhabit and engage with. Depending on location and variations in such realities, places can be either similar or entirely different. In either case, they allow us to construct meaning and to make sense of where we are, and perhaps who we are. 

The relationship between designed space and place is, however, far more complex and requires deeper deliberation. After all, designed space itself is a tangible human reality, capable of influencing place, and with it our ability to construct meaning in or through it.     

Through select readings on the many interpretations of regionalism, coupled with relevant case studies and assignments, this seminar explores the complexity of this relationship, expanding on the role and our reading of place in the production of space. In an ever-increasing flow of building trends and technologies, it questions the insensitive, acontextual, and image-obsessed approach to form-making, and instead pushes for deeper interconnections between form and specificities of place – not for the sake of it, but for the purpose of resisting homogeneity, countering placelessness, celebrating diversity, restoring feelings of belonging, and promoting actual sustainability. 

Spatial form is found in place, not imposed on it – this seminar argues.

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CONTINUAL BECOMING

Studio

2022
School of Architecture & Environment
University of Oregon, Eugene

This vertical studio looks to unsettle established systems of spatial homogeneity – not for the sake of it, but to encourage more meaningful social interactions and cultural relations in the urban environment, or to simply enrich everyday urban life. The focus will be on exploring, critiquing, and challenging conventional connectivity, or lack thereof, between the inside (shielded interior space) and the outside (estranged public realm) in search of a third, in-between space that at once suggests a new interior condition and a new urban scenario characterized by seamless transitions, experiential transparencies, constant reconfigurations, rightful appropriations, and a strong sense of collectivity. 

By navigating key research on porosity and reawakening key concepts of situationism, it strives for spaces that remain in a state of continual becoming, constantly inventing and re-inventing in accordance with time, needs, and preferences of the occupants and visitors. 

The site is a partially vacant, single-story building facing a public plaza and located within the premises of the Central Bus Station in Downtown Eugene.

Program is to be determined by the students themselves – through observation and analysis of the specified location and its broader context.

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ALTERNATIVE SPATIAL PERSPECTIVES, PRACTICES, AND PRODUCTONS _ GLOBAL SOUTH IN FOCUS

Seminar

2021
School of Architecture & Environment
University of Oregon, Eugene

Since the global financial crisis of 2007-08, calls for social and environmental justice have been on the rise, providing impetus to a growing number of mass mobilizations and protest movements around the world, particularly against the doctrine of neoliberalism. But what is neoliberalism, and why should it be of any concern to us?  

Encompassing both politics and economics, neoliberalism is an ideology that has been adopted around the world since the 1970s, sometimes voluntarily; other times through coercive pressures. It is widely associated with policies of economic liberalization, including globalization, privatization, deregulation, free markets, free trade, and austerity measures. Supporters of the neoliberal project argue that such policies liberate the potential of capitalism to create an unprecedented era of social well-being. On the other hand, critics of the project argue that such policies only benefit the dominant classes of both developed and developing countries, which have established worldwide class alliances responsible for promoting the same policies. Critics also argue that the adoption of such policies has come at high human and environmental costs, evident in the persistence of poverty; unequal distribution of wealth and opportunities in most countries; and growing inequalities between the global north and the global south. In the south, it has had a profound impact in terms of increasing levels of poverty and new forms of accumulation by dispossession, as well as contamination and loss of natural habitats and ecosystems. 

Knowingly or not, architects have been complicit in these processes due to their ties to dominant power structures and entrenched economic interests, for which reason we must ask: How can architects proactively contribute to meaningful social and environmental change, especially in geographies characterized by high levels of poverty and environmental degradation? 

Centered on notions of spatial agency, activism, empowerment, inclusivity and co-creation, this seminar brings into focus a set of contemporary spatial practices operating in the global south that keep people before power, place before profit, and cooperation before competition in pursuit of solutions (not just spatial) that foster social equity and environmental rehabilitation.

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NEOLIBERALISM AND CITIES AS SITES OF CONTESTED SPATIALITIES _ THE CASE OF GLOBAL SOUTH

Seminar

2021
Graduate Program + Liberal Arts Core
Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture, Karachi

This seminar examines neoliberalism as a political project and an economic assault, tracing its origin, evolution, globalization, and influence on socio-economic and environmental fabrics of cities (urban spatialities) from perspectives of critical urban theory.

The focus, however, remains on the exploding cities of the Global South where the process of neoliberalization has become a major driving force behind increasing socio-economic inequalities and worsening environmental conditions since the turn of the 21st century.

The seminar is hence structured around six underlying thematics, beginning with discussions on critical urban theory as a critique of ideology and power in pursuit of spatial justice and the right to the city, before shifting focus onto neoliberalism as an ideology and expression of power that quietly surfaced in the 1980s and has ruled the world since, albeit namelessly. It then enters the sphere of cities in which the symbiotic relationship between the neoliberal project and the urban condition is deconstructed and reconstructed. It then locates the arrival of neoliberal policies in the Global South, uncovering its impacts on the major cities of the region, comprehending them as venues of contested spatialities or spatial conditions defined by the formal and the informal, the pedagogical and the performative, the imagined and the actual. Here, it takes a look at cities like Sao Paolo in South America; Mexico City in Central America; Douala in Central Africa; Cairo between North Africa and The Middle East; Manila in Southeast Asia; and finally Mumbai, Karachi and Dhaka in South Asia. 

The seminar concludes with discussions on the need for urban movements and urban reforms, at which juncture it examines the urban transformation of Medellin in pursuit of critical lessons and inspirations.

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UNDERGRADUATE DESIGN THESIS

Studio

2017 - 2021
Faculty of Architecture
Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture, Karachi

Design Thesis is a year-long comprehensive research and design studio spanning two semesters in the final year of the Bachelor of Architecture program. It inspires students to explore areas of personal interest (see gallery below), to embrace both research and design as forms of critical inquiry, to cross disciplinary boundaries in search of deeper awareness and familiarity, and to strive for spatial solutions that speak loudly for social and environmental good. While advisors play a supporting role suggesting possible approaches, techniques, methods, directions, or resources, students maintain primary authorship of the work produced.

The studio begins in the Spring semester with students identifying an area of interest, establishing a theoretical position, developing a comprehensive theoretical framework, and identifying and analyzing potential building programs, sites and surroundings, and user groups. In the Fall semester, students establish and test potential design considerations, before developing schematic and detailed design proposals. 

The studio serves as a space for critical reading and writing, knowing and being, thinking and making.