Living Continuity is a collective inquiry on the challenges and opportunities of working towards spatially just neighbourhoods. Session VI explores the importance of amplifying and enabling community voices. What are the challenges, incremental and transformative actions necessary to challenge current systems that exclude and marginalize the global majority? How can modes of research support modes of resistance? Marcos Parga presents his research on decentralized domesticities. Inspired by the isolation many experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic, and reflecting on the scarcity of housing in many urban centers, he attempts to imagine new models that allow residents to reclaim the architectures they have been given.

Marcos Parga, Ph.D., is an international, award winning architect and designer, Assistant Professor at Syracuse University School of Architecture and founding principal of MAPAa Estudio, a design practice based in Syracuse, NY (USA) and Madrid (Spain). His research explores alternative ways of practicing and evaluating the architecture of the collective, considering the impact of contemporary environmental, political, economic, and social issues on the built environment and its influence on creating the appropriate conditions for certain social changes to occur. Through his current work he investigates emerging models of urban commons and new forms of shared domesticities, questioning the political role of architects in shaping those alternative realities.

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Living Continuity is a collective inquiry on the challenges and opportunities of working towards spatially just neighbourhoods. Session VI explores the importance of amplifying and enabling community voices. What are the challenges, incremental and transformative actions necessary to challenge current systems that exclude and marginalize the global majority? How can modes of research support modes of resistance? Maitha Alhammadi presents her semi-autoethnographic research on Al Rahba City in Abu Dhabi, reflecting on the evolution of the suburban city and the changing relationship women and girls have had to it.

Maitha Alhammadi is a recent Architecture graduate from the American University of Sharjah (AUS). She is currently working as a landscape designer on multiple infrastructural projects with Parsons in Abu Dhabi, the UAE. Driven by her keen interest in nature, art, sciences, and community wellbeing, she is working towards promoting wellness and more physical activity in the UAE. Besides advocating for community-based wellness centers within her community, her current research examines the landscapes's socio-ecological capacities and began whilst seeking knowledge towards revitalizing the cities of the UAE in her last semester at AUS.

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Living Continuity is a collective inquiry on the challenges and opportunities of working towards spatially just neighbourhoods. Session VI explores the importance of amplifying and enabling community voices. What are the challenges, incremental and transformative actions necessary to challenge current systems that exclude and marginalize the global majority? How can modes of research support modes of resistance? Ailo Ribas shares her fieldwork and experiences with alternative ecology practices in the Bethnal Green Nature Reserve in London, UK, asking how such practices can nurture wellbeing and disrupt a city culture of production, consumption, and excess.

Ailo Ribas is a trans writer, researcher, community organiser and archivist. Her work seeks to build networks of knowledge-sharing and storytelling within and between communities around the topics of trans care, plants, urban ecologies and witchcraft. She is a graduate of the Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmiths University and a founding member of the artist research collective Al-Wah'at.

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Living Continuity is a collective inquiry on the challenges and opportunities of working towards spatially just neighbourhoods. Session V looks critically inwards to explore work that challenges the current frontiers of architecture and urbanism. How can praxis enable critical engagement, and what does it reveal around current issues of access, exclusion, precarity and participation in neighborhood planning? Arshiya Syed explores the impact of the neoliberal turn in the Indian economy on urban development since the late 1990s. She focuses on the city of Hyderabad to show how neoliberalism has led to a privileging of profit-driven mega projects, including infrastructure and tourism developments.

Arshiya Syed is the founder of Studio Maqam, an architecture and urban design firm in Hyderabad, India. She holds a Masters degree in Urban Design from the School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi, and was also an Urban Fellow with the Indian Institute of Human Settlements, Bangalore. Arshiya has a decade of experience in architecture and urban design practice, and is a visiting faculty member, teaching urban design and housing studios in several architecture schools. Her research interests lie in affordable housing, public space design, and the historical development of cities. She is currently writing a book on the experience and architecture of the Hajj in the city of Mecca.

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Living Continuity is a collective inquiry on the challenges and opportunities of working towards spatially just neighbourhoods. Session V looks critically inwards to explore work that challenges the current frontiers of architecture and urbanism. How can praxis enable critical engagement, and what does it reveal around current issues of access, exclusion, precarity and participation in neighbourhood planning?  Jason Carlow examines Sharjah’s industrial zones, analyzing how working-class, migrant ‘bachelors’ transcend the limited infrastructure available to them and use informality to create spaces of leisure, commerce, and housing.

Jason Carlow holds a BA in Visual and Environmental Studies from Harvard University and an MArch from Yale University, and is Associate Professor of Architecture at American University of Sharjah. Prior to AUS, he taught architecture, with a focus on compact housing and urban informality, at University of Hong Kong for ten years. His recent work focuses on issues surrounding housing for dense urban environments. He is co-author of the forthcoming book, Cities of Repetition: Hong Kong’s Privately Developed Housing Estates (AR+D Publications) and a book chapter entitled, “Industrial Promises: New Speculative thinking for Sharjah’s industrial districts,” in Urban Modernity in the Contemporary Gulf: Obsolescence and Opportunity, edited by Roberto Fabbri and Sultan Sooud Al-Qassemi (Routledge). Carlow’s design and research work has been published and exhibited internationally at the Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture in Shenzhen and Hong Kong, Venice Biennale of Architecture, and Beijing Architecture Biennial, and he is the recipient of the 2020 AIA/ACSA Housing Design Education Award.

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Living Continuity is a collective inquiry on the challenges and opportunities of working towards spatially just neighbourhoods. Session V looks critically inwards to explore work that challenges the current frontiers of architecture and urbanism. How can praxis enable critical engagement, and what does it reveal around current issues of access, exclusion, precarity and participation in neighbourhood planning?. Najia Fatima discusses the status of sanitation workers in urban Pakistan, highlighting how class, caste, and religious identity intersect to marginalize workers, and how urban design and housing conditions exacerbate this marginalization.

Najia Fatima is a graduate of M.S. Critical, Curatorial, and Conceptual Practices of Architecture at the Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. Fatima also has an independent art practice that engages with themes of occupation, displacement, and geopolitical tensions in contemporary South Asia; her writing, considering how the built environment manifests structural inequality, has been published in various magazines. She earned her B.A. in Architecture and Visual Studies from the University of Toronto.

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Living Continuity is a collective inquiry on the challenges and opportunities of working towards spatially just neighbourhoods. Session V looks critically inwards to explore work that challenges the current frontiers of architecture and urbanism. How can praxis enable critical engagement, and what does it reveal around current issues of access, exclusion, precarity and participation in neighbourhood planning? Paulina Yeal Cho examines the Bom Retiro district in Sāo Paulo, Brazil, reflecting on its rich migrant history, how the neighborhood has developed into a Koreatown, and how this relates to the rise of hallyū and Korean soft power.

Paulina Yeal Cho is the daughter of a single Korean migrant mom. She was born in Brazil and spent her youth between São Paulo and Buenos Aires. Paulina graduated from Tsinghua University with a master's degree in Global Affairs and University of Sao Paulo with a bachelor's in Law. She was a researcher on Green Gentrification, Ecological Urbanism, and Capitalization of Nature at Escola da Cidade. Currently, Paulina is working at Systemiq, developing projects that promote a nature-based, people-centered and sustainable approach in the region.

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Living Continuity is a collective inquiry on the challenges and opportunities of working towards spatially just neighborhoods. Session IV aims to explore the temporal dimension of housing through indicators of social cohesion and spatial qualities that resist transience. Dr. Yasser Elsheshtawy expands on a case study analysis of folk houses in the UAE, how they became a testament to inhabitants asserting their presence and rootedness in the midst of a constantly changing cityscape, and the lessons they provide.

Yasser Elsheshtawy is an independent scholar, an Adjunct Professor of Architecture at Columbia University, GSAPP, and a Non-Resident Fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, DC. He was a Professor of Architecture at United Arab Emirates University, Al Ain, where in addition to teaching he also ran the Urban Research Lab. He was appointed as the curator for the UAE Pavilion at the 15th Venice Architecture Biennale in 2016. Considered an authority on urbanism in the region, his scholarship focuses on urbanization in developing societies, informal urbanism, urban history, and environment-behavior studies, with a particular focus on Middle Eastern cities. He authored a series of books and publications including “Dubai: Behind an urban spectacle” (ranked no. 1 on Amazon under the 'United Arab Emirates History' category in September 17). His blog dubaization has been hailed by The Guardian as one of the notable city blogs in the world. Elsheshtawy is currently working on a book about the Arab Gulf City titled Temporary Cities. He has been appointed as a Visiting Professor at Université Sorbonne Paris Cité (Fall 2017). He was a Visiting Scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, DC to pursue his research on urbanization in the Gulf and work on his book during Spring 2018.

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Living Continuity is a collective inquiry on the challenges and opportunities of working towards spatially just neighborhoods. Session IV aims to explore the temporal dimension of housing through indicators of social cohesion and spatial qualities that resist transience. Dr. Bhakti More shares her study comparing four residential neighborhoods in Dubai to understand the concept of residential stability, social cohesiveness, and the influence of shared spaces amongst expatriate residents in neighborhoods in Dubai. 
 
Dr. Bhakti More is a Chairperson, School of Design & Architecture, Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE) Dubai Campus. She has pursued her doctoral studies at the School of Built Environment, University of Salford, Manchester, UK, and her area of research is 'Urban planning, neighborhoods and social cohesiveness: A socio-cultural study of expatriate residents in Dubai. She received CIOB Best Research Paper Award for the most innovative research for her paper titled "Expatriate Housing and the Social Fabric in Dubai" during the 12th International Post Graduate Research Conference, University of Salford Manchester UK in 2015. Dr. Bhakti has presented papers at International Conferences in Portland, USA, Fukuoka, Japan, and Dubai. She is a coordinator for Manipal Environment and Conservation Students Club received consecutive awards for Best Sustainable Green Campus Audit and Best Sustainability Action Project from Environment Agency Abu Dhabi and has led research and innovation project for MAHE Dubai team "Tawazun" for building net zero home for Solar Decathlon ME 2021 and is part of the core team for preparing Climate Action Plan for MAHE Dubai. Dr. Bhakti is an ambassador for 'Woman in Construction' for the Big 5, Dubai, and is President of Manipal Employee Resource Group, Diversity & Inclusion. She is a mentor for the E7 Daughter of Emirates Program and Link Mentorship Program in the UAE.

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Living Continuity, the first instalment of SAT Research’s Seminar Series, is an invitation to begin a collective, multiscalar and contextualized inquiry on the challenges and potentialities of working towards a socially and ecologically just urban future. Beginning at the scale of the neighbourhood, the first seminar focuses on local challenges to preserving robust, sustainable and inclusive neighbourhoods. 

Session I on alternatives to urban expansion features Mona El-Mousfy’s insights into her research-based practice and the application of adaptive reuse in Sharjah City, and Khaled Galal Ahmed, who offers alternative solutions to social housing in the UAE to challenge the prevalence of Western housing models. 

Mona El-Mousfy is an architect and the founder of SpaceContinuum, a research-based architecture practice that explores the relation between space, shared social practices and socio-cultural conditions. El-Mousfy is the Advisor to the Sharjah Architecture Triennial and played a key role in founding the initiative in 2017. She is also the Architecture Consultant for the Sharjah Art Foundation where she has worked on several projects including the successive editions of the Sharjah Biennial since 2005. 

El-Mousfy is currently engaged in various adaptive reuse projects leading a team of architects at the Sharjah Art Foundation and the Sharjah Architecture Triennial. Among other projects, she designed the SAF Art Spaces Al Mureijah, 2013, which was shortlisted for the 2019 Agha Khan award for Architecture. Her most recent adaptive reuse project is the Flying Saucer, 2020, where she has restored the original mid-70s character of the building while introducing a new outdoor public space and a lower-level community space around a sunken courtyard. 

El-Mousfy has previously taught at the College of Architecture Art and Design, American University of Sharjah, where she had a full-time position from 2002 to 2014.

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Living Continuity, the first instalment of SAT Research’s Seminar Series, is an invitation to begin a collective, multiscalar and contextualized inquiry on the challenges and potentialities of working towards a socially and ecologically just urban future. Beginning at the scale of the neighbourhood, the first seminar focuses on local challenges to preserving robust, sustainable and inclusive neighbourhoods. 

Session I on alternatives to urban expansion features Mona El-Mousfy’s insights into her research-based practice and the application of adaptive reuse in Sharjah City, and Khaled Galal Ahmed, who offers alternative solutions to social housing in the UAE to challenge the prevalence of Western housing models. 

Dr Khaled Galal Ahmed is Associate Professor and the Coordinator of the Architectural Engineering Master and PhD Programs at UAEU. Dr Khaled got his PhD from the Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University, UK. He worked as an architect and urban designer and his research interest is related to sustainable architecture, urbanism and housing especially in Socio-Cultural Impact, Urban Modeling Simulation, Walkability, Urban Morphology and Energy Efficiency, Community Participation, and Urban Resilience. He published his research work in various international journals, conferences proceedings and book chapters. Dr Khaled teaches undergraduate and graduate courses related to architectural, urban and housing design. He has supervised several Master theses and PhD Dissertations at Mansoura University, Egypt and the UAE University. Dr Khaled has several articles in local and regional newspapers and magazines including National Geographic Arabia and has been honoured for his various contributions from the Minister of Happiness and Wellbeing, Abu Dhabi Municipality, Sheikh Zayed Housing Program, Al Ain Municipality, Fujairah Municipality, and Directorate of Planning and Survey, Sharjah. Recently Dr Khaled won the UAEU Chancellor’s Innovation Award in Education- 6th Cycle 20-21. He also won the College of Engineering Award in University and Community Services, Academic Year 2020-2021.

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Living Continuity, the first instalment of SAT Research, is an invitation to begin a collective, multiscalar and contextualized inquiry on the challenges and potentialities of working towards socially and ecologically just neighbourhoods. It is motivated by observations on two key emerging issues: homogenized urban zones and dormitory towns that are expanding the city's footprint at an exponential rate and the erosion of social cohesion, inclusion and lived continuity.

Session II explored urban networks as critical space in neighbourhoods, the potential impact of micro-networks and the possibilities of designing for collective efficacy and interdependence.

Beatriz Itzel Cruz Megchun shares her research focused on how design intersects with other disciplines to reveal, examine, and transform values, practices, processes, systems, or narratives. Her work reveals how people use social spaces to create community, a sense of identity and belonging.  This fact supports the need to shift the current approach to empower those that inhabit a space to participate and contribute directly to its design.

Beatriz Itzel Cruz Megchun is an Assistant Professor of Design and Innovation at the Pamplin School of Business at the University of Portland. Previously, she was an Assistant Professor in Design Management in the College of Architecture, Art and Design at the American University of Sharjah. She obtained her PhD at Staffordshire University, UK, in Design and Innovation. She was awarded a post-doctoral research fellowship at the Centre of Applied Business Research to study design in the decision-making process of entrepreneurs of technology-based enterprises.  Her educational content addresses diversity, inclusion, equity and global citizenship in the business context. She has over 15 years of experience consulting in the creative, manufacturing, and new technology industries worldwide. She also participates in projects with non-governmental organizations and governmental institutions addressing social inequalities.

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Living Continuity, the first instalment of SAT Research, is an invitation to begin a collective, multiscalar and contextualized inquiry on the challenges and potentialities of working towards socially and ecologically just neighbourhoods. It is motivated by observations on two key emerging issues: homogenized urban zones and dormitory towns that are expanding the city's footprint at an exponential rate and the erosion of social cohesion, inclusion and lived continuity.

Session II explored urban networks as critical space in neighbourhoods, the potential impact of micro-networks and the possibilities of designing for collective efficacy and interdependence.

In this seminar, Dr Khaled Al Awadi expands on a study that identifies alleys as a critical space, especially at the neighbourhood scale. Alleys have been neglected in the definition of urban form even though they have existed since antiquity and have served a variety of vital purposes for the community.

Khaled Alawadi is the first UAE national scholar to specialize in the design of sustainable cities, Dr. Alawadi is Assistant Professor of Sustainable Urbanism at Khalifa University, Masdar Campus, where he founded the MSc. in Sustainable Critical Infrastructure program. He is a trained architect, planner and urban designer whose research is devoted to urban design, housing and urbanism, especially the relationships between the built environment and sustainable development.

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Living Continuity, the first instalment of SAT Research, is an invitation to begin a collective, multiscalar and contextualized inquiry on the challenges and potentialities of working towards socially and ecologically just neighbourhoods. It is motivated by observations on two key emerging issues: homogenised urban zones and dormitory towns that are expanding the city's footprint at an exponential rate and the erosion of social cohesion, inclusion and lived continuity.

Session III focuses on how macro-forces and neoliberal urbanism have increased the risk of community expulsion and resulted in varying forms of community exclusion. Bhoomika Ghaghada presents her research on the downtown neighbourhood of Karama and how its landscape, demographic composition, and cultural identity have been transformed through redevelopment since 2015, leading to cultural expulsion. Developed during her MA in Media Studies at Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, in 2019, her thesis centres the embedded South Asian community of Karama as it undergoes erasure.

Bhoomika Ghaghada is a writer and independent researcher, born and raised in the UAE. She writes about gender, urban spaces, and media, focusing on structural inequalities and their everyday manifestations. Her writing has appeared in Jadaliyya, Postscript Magazine, and Unootha Mag. She is the Co-Founder of Gulf Creative Collective, a non-profit initiative helping creatives in the UAE re-evaluate notions of value, advocate for themselves in the workplace, and find refuge, care and community.

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Living Continuity, the first instalment of SAT Research, is an invitation to begin a collective, multiscalar and contextualized inquiry on the challenges and potentialities of working towards socially and ecologically just neighbourhoods. It is motivated by observations on two key emerging issues: homogenized urban zones and dormitory towns that are expanding the city's footprint at an exponential rate and the erosion of social cohesion, inclusion and lived continuity.

Sharmeen Azam Inayat is a cultural worker. She is currently working with the Sharjah Architecture Triennial on charting and establishing the SAT Research initiative as Research Curator.

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