30/10/2026
“Ways of teaching-with in architecture” Lecture Series
Wednesday 4 Nov, at 15.00
BAS Auditorium
Open to all!
Reclaiming the Space: Studio as Site of Civic Experimentation
In this lecture, Saman Qayyum explores how public space in Pakistan is continually regulated, restricted, and reclaimed, from gated communities and heritage sites governed by security and control, to informal markets and community-led parks that quietly assert civic presence against those same systems. Rather than treating this tension as a subject for study alone, Saman Qayyum will discuss how it has shaped her own teaching practice, particularly through an urban design studio conducted with students in Haripur, KPK, Pakistan. There, students were asked not to design finished solutions, but to test ideas of access, ownership, and everyday democracy directly on site, through participatory and culture-driven methods of inquiry. Drawing on selected student projects, Qayyum will reflect on what it means to treat the studio itself as a space of experimentation and contestation, mirroring the very urban dynamics it seeks to understand, and on what this approach can offer architectural pedagogy more broadly, in Pakistan and beyond.