Farrokh Derakhshani is creating spaces of optimism

Can you remember the last time a building gave you hope? Remarkable spaces around the world are doing just that, purposefully designed to go beyond just a structure and become a source of positive impact.

Registered architect, Farhad Mortezaee, sessional instructor and PhD candidate at the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape (SAPL), has known Farrokh Derakhshani for 30 years, and called on him as a friend and a mentor, bringing him to the University of Calgary for this lecture.

On May 7, UCalgary’s Design Matters lecture welcomed respected Iranian Swiss architect and urban planner Derakhshani at his talk, Architecture & Optimism. Since 2006, Derakhshani has also served as director of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture, which recognizes groundbreaking architecture projects that shape a sustainable future.

“Farrokh is a connector, first and foremost. In architecture, we can be individualistic, but we need people who take pride in bringing people together, celebrating and acknowledging others’ achievements,” Mortezaee says. 

A collaboration between the UCalgary Pluralism Initiative, the Institutes for Transdisciplinary Scholarship, and SAPL — and supported by UCalgary’s Visiting Scholars Program — the event explored how architecture can shape the community and enrich the lives of the people within it.

Derakhshani says that “architecture can create shared spaces that reconcile difference, strengthen social cohesion, and foster dialogue among communities marked by diversity, displacement, or historical adversity.”

And creating these enriched spaces of optimism and hope is what the Aga Khan Award for Architecture is all about.

The Aga Khan Award for Architecture  

Mortezaee says the award is about a whole project, not only the architect.

“It’s about projects that set new standards of excellence, and emphasize architecture that provides for physical, social, and economic needs while also stimulating local aspirations and culture,” he says.

The award was designed to honour spaces that also provoke important questions for the world’s collective future. Only chosen every three years, the selection process is extensively transdisciplinary, bringing together a collaborative group of experts to form the jury for each particular cycle.

“The Aga Khan Award of Architecture understands something important: Pluralism is not only dialogue. It is something we design, build, inhabit, maintain, and repair. It is a continuous process of learning, making, and modifying,” says Dr. Aleem Bharwani, PhD, founding director of the UCalgary Pluralism Initiative, academic co-lead chair for the Institutes for Transdisciplinary Scholarship, and associate professor in the Cumming School of Medicine.

Building spaces for hope and optimism 

The award’s most recent cycle selected seven projects as winners, highlighting architecture’s capacity to serve as a catalyst for pluralism, resilience, social transformation, dialogue and climate responsiveness.  

Khudi Bari is a modular structure made of bamboo and steel in Bangladesh, replicable and created for displaced communities impacted by climate change. It can withstand wind and water in a community that faces flooding and storms and is built by the local community members.  

Wonder Cabinet is a multi-purpose space in Palestine that provides workspaces for Palestinian artists, designers, engineers and producers, creating a hub for creativity and learning — but also perhaps, more critically, a place for hope and gathering in a war-affected area.  

“These projects are often self-initiated — they are not founded in think tanks or strategy sessions,” says Mortezaee. “I tell my students: You can change things. What is it they want to do with the world that comes to them? We can bring people together and do better social good.” 

Bharwani echoes what the projects demonstrate to us: that design is not only for designers, but that everyone has an opportunity and responsibility to shape the spaces that shape our shared futures. 

“Architecture becomes optimistic when it does not deny difficulty, but works through it,” says Bharwani.  

“I hope students don’t just see the university as a place to design their careers but as a place to design new possibilities that tackle the challenges that bother them the most, and that they look at these great challenges with hope, resolve, and clear-eyed optimism.” 

Check out videos and details for all cycles of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture here .

Students can learn more about UCalgary’s Certificate in Pluralism and Global Citizenship here.