Safira Lakhani - intern architect

Safira is a Calgary-based Intern Architect, driven by a passion for spatial justice, particularly as it exists at the intersection of design and policymaking. She holds an Honours Bachelor Degree in Architectural Studies (2015) and a Master of Architecture (Water) (2017) from the University of Waterloo. With a vision and sensibility rooted in an ethic of pluralism, Safira is firmly convinced that space has a profound influence on the quality of everyday life. This belief drives her core commitment to advocate for the role of architecture in advancing just and equitable societies.

Safira’s award-winning graduate thesis (2017) advocates for the agency of design in fragile states; notably that participatory architecture, decentralised infrastructure, and local ecology can create a grounded framework for enduring peace and sustainable development. Centred in Bamyan, Afghanistan, her work critiqued contemporary practices of liberal peacebuilding, and offered solutions that coupled local ecological and cultural systems to conceive a practice of design that could create a grounded framework and replicable model for enduring, positive peace and sustainable development.  

This work was premised in on-the-ground consulting experience with the Post-Conflict and Disaster Management Branch of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in Afghanistan (2016) and has since been presented and published globally (2018, 2019). As an Environment Architect with UNEP, Safira was instrumental in the top-down policy making and bottom-up implementation of dynamic ecosystem-based models for integrated initiatives in five flagship project sites. She developed a national planning guidance approach and site planning documents highlighting strategic, operational, and practical actions required for government, partners, and local communities to initiate planning, action, and research activities on community-based climate change, disaster-risk-reduction, and resilience planning strategies. This experience was formative for Safira in its acute revelation of the missing link between design and policy, and the implications of this on the lived realities of everyday citizens.

Safira’s professional repertoire (2011-Present) also includes affordable housing projects in New York and Edmonton as well as a diverse range of civic infrastructure in Toronto, Edmonton, and Guelph. Most recently, with Reimagine Architects, Safira’s work has been in the design of learning environments and cultural spaces for First Nations, Indigenous, and Metis communities across Alberta. Since 2019, Safira has additionally been a design consultant for the Aga Khan Agency for Habitat in Central Asia where she is preparing design guidelines and technical details for sustainable housing strategies in rural mountainous areas of Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Northern Pakistan. A key component of this work has been developing community engagement strategies that empower all voices on the ground to participate in the design process as a means of understanding implementation challenges and ensuring feasibility, local investment, and long-term sustainability.  

Safira’s research and professional work is paired with a continuous investment in activism and volunteering with her local communities. With IMARA, Safira has provided design services for projects in North America and Europe; she is an advisory board member for Waterloo Architecture’s Racial Equity and Environmental Justice Task Force; and over the years has initiated a number of local urban design interventions that seek to engage everyday citizens in conversations about their lived experiences of the built environment. In 2020, Safira was recognized as a Top 30 Under 30 by the Alberta Council for Global Cooperation for her contributions to Sustainable Development. 

Check out her publication "Towards a Feminine Peace"