01 MAP SPOT

Map Spot aims to develop local spaces for grassroots map-making, where people can creatively and collaboratively explore data. The Map Room Project aims to empower people to understand, but also challenge and even redefine the stories that maps and data tell about their lives, and about the places they live.

Civic Tech, Interaction Design, Data Visualization

02 PUBLIC INTEREST TECHNOLOGIES & EPISTEMIC INJUSTICE

An ethnographic study of the design and implementation of Heat Seek program, a non-profit organization that provides tenants with heat sensors in New York City, engaging with ethics of technology in communities and questions of privacy and transparency.

Public Interest Technology, Civic Tech, User Experience Research, Housing Justice, IoT Sensors

03 Urban Discourse on Social Media

Urban greenways present an exciting yet contentious movement within cities. This project tracks “rails-to-tracks” discourse in 4 cities, Atlanta, Detroit, Chicago and New York, on Reddit. Through an analysis of 37,000 posts over a period of 13 years, using Machine Learning, the project illustrates how the conversations and sentiments have shifted online around the greenways, offering opportunities for policy makers, community organizers and urban activists glean novel insights. 

Social Media, Machine Learning, Dynamic Topic Modeling, Big Data, Urban Analytics

04 Conversing with Clay

Can we move beyond the anthropocene in how we conceptualize interactions? This project is an exploration of human-agency and interaction through a clay and Arduino powered interactive installation  through the lense of human-computer interaction, the limits of user experience (UX) and material embodiment.

Interaction Design, Biometric Sensor, Design Installation, Material Embodiment

05 TRELLIS

As a response to the urban growth, sky-high land prices and the problem of housing, the projects explores the potential of applying the principles of sharing-economy to architecture. Using ‘dwelling’ as its object of investigation, the project aims to question the form of dwelling in a ‘post-capitalistic’ setting. The project specifically looks at Karachi, and the South Asian region, with its history of ‘sharing’, as an ideal place to apply these concepts for a better, sustainable and equitable future.

Architecture & Urban Design, User Research, Data Visualization

06 HEART SENSE

How can the very creation, rendering, and experiencing of biological data be distinctly feminist? For example, how can it start from women’s lives in all our plurality and complexity, break down binaries such as objectivity/subjectivity and science/feminism, and contribute to a more nuanced understanding of our bodies – a kind of knowing that is in and of the world?

Interaction Design, Data Visualization, Biometric Sensor, Design Installation

07 YARDs

YARDs, or, Youth Advocacy for Resilience to Disasters is a 14-session cross curricular STEAM program designed for 6-12 graders to teach them about disaster resiliency, community mapping, infrastructure and public advocacy. The program is focused on youth of colors and underserved communities at risk of being impacted by climate change. 

EdTech, Data Visualization, Community Organizing, Urban Resiliency, Educational

08 AIR

An AI based, Architectural Image Recognition program capable of classifying architectural drawings against a set of 10 architects comprising of Louis Kahn, Corbusier, Koolhaas, Zaha Hadid and others. The program can be used standalone, without any installation, or as part of a Rhino/Grasshopper package.

Artifical Intelligence, Architecture, UI Design, Image Recognition, Software

09 HUAWEI’S SAFE CITIES IN PAKISTAN

Report exploring the extent and scope of the Huawei’s Safe City Projects inside Pakistan. While Huawei’s interventions in Africa and other Smart Cities have garnered a lot of attention, Huawei’s involvement in Pakistan precedes all other projects carried out with speed and secrecy and in many ways served as the prototype for its more recent projects.

Policy, IoT, Urban Design, Smart City

10 Junaijo Town Urban Study & Design Proposal

Carried out as a part of an Urban Open Space Design project inside the Department of Architecture at IVSAA, Karachi. This report documents the localities of Junaijo Town and Akhtar Colony inside Karachi. Junaijo Town and Akhtar Colony are a nexus of an urban and natural node.This report analyses the data from the comprehensive analysis of the BOA of its existing conditions to further explore the possibilities and opportunities of housing and recreational activity integration at different levels of the existing society as different Stages of interventions and Proposals within the area in focus.

Policy, Architecture & Urban Design, User Experience Research