“Whatever space and time mean, place and occasion mean more”

– Aldo van Eyck, Architect

A visit to Karachi in 2016 sparked a longstanding creative collaboration with grassroots art collective Numaish, and Habib University’s Centre for Media and Design, headed by Professor Saima Zaidi (author of Mazaar, Bazaar: Design and Visual Culture in Pakistan).

DIY City is the project which cemented this relationship – bringing artists, citizens, local government, and a trans-disciplinary student team together to experiment with ‘grassroots placemaking’; re-appropriating the participatory tools and techniques of neighbourhood regeneration – employed successfully in recent years by property developers in areas like NYC’s High Line district, and London’s Kings Cross – to bring the centrally located Sobhraj Chetumal Terrace (behind the National Museum of Pakistan) back into use, for neighbourhood residents and city visitors alike.

Press: Karachi-Manchester nano festival lights up Rambagh Quarters. Dawn, 2 May 2017.