Sami Chohan is an architect, urbanist, and educator invested in orienting the processes of conceptualizing and constructing space towards addressing broader issues of place and time, whether political, social, economic, technological, or environmental. With a keen interest in critical urban theory and environmental studies, he is a strong advocate of combining interdisciplinary and philosophical modes of thinking with creative yet contextually appropriate frameworks of making – a synthesis he terms imperative if we are to arrive at more just, equitable and sustainable urban environments for all.

Before joining the School of Architecture & Environment as a Visiting Faculty Fellow in Design for Spatial Justice, Sami was Assistant Professor at the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture in Karachi where he led the undergraduate architecture program from 2015 to 2019, managed and co-taught the design thesis studio, and taught various non-studio courses, including a graduate seminar around the impact of neoliberal policies on socio-spatial fabrics of major cities across the global south. 

In 2018, he curated Pakistan’s first-ever national pavilion at the Venice Biennale of Architecture. Titled as The Fold, the pavilion was an expression of the complex and often contradictory relationships between the physical and social dimensions of the many informal settlements of Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city with a population of over 16 million.           

He holds a Master of Arts in Interior Architectural Design from Hochschule für Technik Stuttgart with an exchange semester at İstanbul Teknik Üniversitesi, and a Bachelor of Architecture from Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture.