Teulo Talks: 28 April 2022_Part One: Tosin Oshinowo + Dr Asma Mehan

Building Dwelling Thinking

Lets talk about buildings, the dwelling and the thinking around the design of them.

9am - 10am

Toshin Oshinowo 

Conceptual design and advocacy

Tosin Oshinowo’s work extends beyond architectural and product design into the advocacy sphere. Much of her work -- from conceptual projects to civic master plans to writing and speaking engagements -- prioritizes a vision of architecture and design that is bigger than creating objects and spaces, but extends to underscore a more equitable and more expansive vision of our shared future. Deriving inspiration from local Yoruba traditions and the international language of architecture and design, Oshinowo explores pathways for the future from a distinctly African perspective that prioritizes equity, sustainability, and a respect for nature and history while creating a new, more contemporary language of design.

10am - 11am 

Dr Asma Mehan 

Teulo Pods: timing = 42.98 minutes 

Podcast with Dr Asma Mehan 

Podcast topic:

Monographs and research projects in the field of Architectural Humanities. 

Dr ASMA MEHAN

EDUCATOR and RESEARCHER

(Ph.D., M.A., B.Arch., B.Sc.)

Ph.D. in Architecture, History and Project, Politecnico di Torino, Italy

Dr. Asma Mehan is an architect, researcher, and educator. She was previously awarded four highly selective fellowships, including an Urban Citizenship Fellowship supported by the Municipality of Amsterdam and the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences (NIAS-KNAW) (2021-2022) and an Individual fellowship funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT). Asma achieved her Ph.D. in the ‘Architecture, History, and Project’ program, on October 2017, from the Politecnico di Torino (Italy). 

Between 2020-2021, Asma held a postdoctoral research fellowship position affiliated with the Leiden Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology (CADS) and the Leiden-Delft-Erasmus (LDE) program for Port City Futures (PCF) in South Holland. Her previous postdoctoral experiences at four important research centers in Porto (2019-2020, CITTA research center, University of Porto), Torino (2018-2019, Future Urban Legacy Lab (FULL), Berlin (2019, ZK/U Center for Art and Urbanistics), and Tehran (2017-2018, Iran University of Science and Technology (IUST), Tehran) have allowed her to conduct research in the different European and Asian contexts. 

Her primary research and teaching interests include architectural humanities, critical urban studies, planning politics, oil urbanism, and Industrial Heritage Studies. Asma completed research stays in Australia (Deakin University, Melbourne, 2016-2017) and at the EPFL University, Lausanne, Switzerland (2017), and was a researcher in resident at the ZK/U Zentrum für Kunst und Urbanistik, Berlin, 2019. She is the co-author of the book entitled “Kuala Lumpur: Community, Infrastructure, and Urban Inclusivity” (London: Routledge, 2020).

Dr. Mehan has taught at TU Delft, Chair of Urban History and Theory, University of Porto, TU Munich, ZK/U Berlin Center for Art and Urbanistics, and Deakin University, Melbourne (Australia). Mehan has received several awards from prestigious institutions such as AESOP, EAHN (European Architectural History Network), Society of Architectural Historians (SAH), ZK/U Center for Art and Urbanistics Berlin, and Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain (SAHGB). 

Dr. Mehan has authored over fifty articles and essays in scholarly books and professional journals in multiple languages on critical urban studies, architecture, urban planning, housing, and heritage studies. She has also has been a member of several international scientific committees and conferences. Asma’s research reaches academic audiences through international exhibitions, artistic venues, policy toolkits, visual media, journalistic blogs, and online outlets. 

In this podcast we talk to Dr Asma Mehan about her background and expertise within the field of Architectural Humanities.  Asma discusses how we evaluate the politically generative dynamic of urban space. Notably, we put forward the notion of the ‘multiplier effect’ of the urban, referring to its ingrained tendency to multiply resistance to oppression and violence being exerted against subaltern groups and minorities and, in doing so, to turn this multiplied resistance into an active force of social change. We, therefore, look at the twofold valence of ‘resistance’: negative and affirmative. Resistance initially takes form as a defensive response to oppression and violence. When this happens, the urban becomes the living platform for a multiplying dynamic of encounter and, potentially, of inter-group solidarity, thus laying the foundations for a cooperative – rather than competitive, as in neoliberal rationality, or inimical, as in national-populist reason – way of ‘being together’.