ADA AWARDS 5th CYCLE 2026-27 CHAIRS ANNOUNCED
The fifth iteration of the multidisciplinary ADA Awards proudly announces its Chairs, representing an inclusive spectrum of creative voices from the north to the south of Pakistan. These distinguished personalities will lead the fifth cycle of the ADA Awards (2025–26), bringing their visionary insights and leadership to the platform. Through their engagement, the Awards will continue to connect with both established and emerging talent across the country in the disciplines of architecture, design, and art.
This year, for the first time, the discipline of Architecture will be co-chaired by Architect Arif Belgaumi and Architect Mansoor Ahmed Qureshi. Their joint leadership brings together decades of professional experience, critical thinking, and a deep commitment to advancing architectural discourse in Pakistan. As Co-Chairs, they will guide the Architecture category of the ADA Awards’ fifth cycle, engaging with both established practitioners and emerging voices across the country.
In the discipline of Design, Tazeen Husain returns as Chair, continuing her tenure as a leading ambassador for design. Through her role, she brings a powerful voice that champions innovation, materiality, and contemporary design practice in Pakistan.
Joining from Lahore, Laila Rehman takes on the role of Chair for Art, representing the prolific and evolving artistic landscape of the country. Her engagement reflects the depth and diversity of Pakistan’s contemporary art environment and strengthens the dialogue between artists across regions.
Under their stewardship, the ADA Awards aim to further strengthen dialogue within Pakistan’s creative fraternity, fostering critical exchange, innovation, and recognition of excellence. This new cycle reaffirms ADA’s commitment to celebrating diverse practices, nurturing future voices, and expanding the discourse around architecture, design, and art as vital forces shaping culture, environment, and society
CHAIRS
Architecture
Arif Belgaumi
is a practcing architect based in Karachi, Pakistan. He received his higher education at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, where he received a Bachelor of Arts in Design of the Environment in 1987 and a Master of Architecture degree in 1995.
Architecture
Mansoor Ahmad Qureshi
graduated with Honours from the National College of Arts (NCA) in 1999. He is currently the Principal Architect of AFKAR Associates, established in 2000, where his practice spans corporate interiors, residential and commercial projects, and healthcare facilities.
Arif Belgaumi established his independent practce in 2000, engaged in architecture, landscape and planning. He is actve in promotng environmental solutons and developments in architecture to address
climate change.
He is an advocate for the preservaton of the natural environments and a proponent of green and sustainable solutons in architectural design. Arif has been engaged with architectural educaton for over twenty years and serves as an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Architecture at the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture.
Arif is a Fellow of the Institute of Architects Pakistan and the Architects Regional Council, Asia. And a member of the American Instute of Architects.
A key focus of his work is Masjid and Madrasa architecture aimed at bridging contemporary education with traditional religious institutions. Through this work, Jamia Usmania established Pakistan’s first Quranic Garden in collaboration with the University of Peshawar, as well as the first private museum in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on its Jallozai campus, registered with the Directorate of Archaeology and Museums, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
He is a founding member of the Institute of Architects Pakistan (IAP) Peshawar Chapter and served as its first Honorary Secretary, playing an important role in bringing together the architectural community and strengthening the institutional presence of architects within society. Over the years he has held several leadership roles within the chapter and has worked closely with government departments and other stakeholders, including the Asian Development Bank (ADB), to promote the recognition of the architectural profession. As Convener of the Provincial Working Group of Architects of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, an initiative of IAP-PC since 2015, he has contributed to efforts that helped establish the inclusion of architects in building control at district, TMA, and development authority levels.
A heritage advocate and social activist, Qureshi has contributed to initiatives related to the built environment, including advisory roles in projects such as the Peshawar Heritage Trail and discussions surrounding the Antiquities Act 2016 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. As Convener of the Peshawar Gala Round Table (2024), he compiled deliberations into actionable goals that led to the Peshawar Resolution and a historic Memorandum of Understanding between IAP and PCATP.
Qureshi has served as an Executive Member of the Pakistan Council of Architects and Town Planners (PCATP) for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, contributing to policy and professional development in the province. Beyond architecture, he is actively engaged in community initiatives and currently serves as Principal Advisor to the Pakhtunkhwa Qaumi Jirga. He is also working on a sustainable community model that positions the Masjid as a social institution to strengthen community engagement through environmental awareness, social welfare initiatives, and collaborative programs with public institutions.
Design
Tazeen Hussain
Tazeen Hussain is an Associate Professor of Practice in Communication and Design at Habib University. She previously served as an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Design at the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture (IVS),
Art
Laila Rahman
Laila Rahman received her BFA from the National College of Arts (NCA), then studied Advanced Painting at Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design, London. She received her Masters in Printmaking with Distinction, from the Slade School of Fine Art, London. Rahman taught at the Department of Fine Arts, NCA, Lahore,
where she also held positions as Head of the Department of Communication Design and the Foundation Program. She has also been visiting faculty in the departments of Visual Studies at Karachi University and Media Sciences at SZABIST.
As a researcher, Hussain has presented her work at national and international conferences. Her current interests include the re-examination of design education, its conception and evolution in the Pakistani context, while exploring the possibilities of design as an active contributor to the socio-cultural and political landscape.
She has designed and led a year-long program under the US–Pakistan University Partnerships Grants Program 2020–23 in partnership with IVS. She also serves actively on the Boards of Studies of various design institutions across Pakistan.
Hussain has been volunteering her services for projects falling in the realm of creative and entrepreneurial development, climate change, and emerging design practice. Notable projects include Karachi Biennale’s “Karachi Art Directory,” education on climate change for vulnerable communities under GRIP – UN GRIP with Indus Earth Trust, and “Meri Duniya Kay Rang” with UNDP. Hussain also contributes to media, is a member of Act Pakistan, and her other areas of contribution include theatre, journalism, and activism.
Hussain received a Bachelor’s degree in Communication Design from the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture and a Master’s degree in New Media and Society from the University of Leicester, UK.
where she was Head of Printmaking & Digital Media. Awarded a Fulbright Scholarship in 2010/11, Rahman worked in the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, SMFA, Boston, MA, ending the year with a solo exhibition at the BAG Gallery, SMFA. She represented Pakistan in the UNHDR Box Print Portfolio in Durban, South Africa. She was the NCA lead on the portfolio project, Print Pals: Then and Now, a collaborative printmaking book, between the National College of Arts, (Lahore and Rawalpindi campuses), and the Slade School of Fine Art, London in 2021; in celebration of 150 years of the Slade School.
Rahman was also the NCA lead in 2023, on RE-USE RE-WORK RE-CONSIDER, a collaborative project between Morley College, London, and the Cowasjee Print Studio, NCA, Lahore, on climate change. This work was exhibited in the Lahore Biennale LB03. In November 2025, Rahman’s work was also part of the National College of Arts’ Triennale exhibitions celebrating 150 years of NCA.
Rahman’s work is in the Permanent Collection of the House of Commons, London; the Victoria & Albert Museum, London; the UCL Museum, London; Cartwright Hall, Bradford, England; Hills Road Sixth Form College, Cambridge, UK; the Weltmuseum Vienna, Austria; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, U.S.A; the Permanent Collection of National College of Arts and Alhamra Art Galleries, Lahore. Rahman has participated in Print Biennales in Portugal and Egypt.
JURY | ARCHITECTURE
Eleena Jamil
is a Malaysian architect born in Penang. She graduated from the Welsh School of
Architecture, CardiƯ University, in the UK. She joined the CardiƯ architecture faculty as a teaching
assistant while completing her MPhil and PhD postgraduate research.
Hasan-Uddin Khan
Hasan-Uddin Khan is an educator, architect and writer who has worked and lived all over the globe. A graduate of the Architectural Association in London, he practiced architecture in London and Karachi.
Noura Al-Sayeh
Noura Al-Sayeh Holtrop is an architect and curator with over 15 years of experience in the cultural development, architectural and planning fields. She has built a number of temporary and permanent architectural installations and interventions and has worked as an architect in Jerusalem,
Her PhD thesis, titled Rethinking Modernism: The Sugden House and the Mother’s House, examined the idea of “ordinariness” and “vernacular imagery” as an alternative to the reductive limitations of modern architecture. She set up her eponymous architectural practice in Kuala Lumpur in 2005 and
focuses on developing buildings within the context of Malaysia and South East Asia.
Eleena’s work has been founded on research into each brief’s specific social and climatic
imperatives within a broader cultural framework. She was shortlisted for Dezeen Architect of the Year 2018 and featured in 100 Women: Architects in Practice, published by RIBA in 2023. In 2021 – 22, she won the ‘Connections through Culture’ grant from British Council Malaysia to carry out the ‘About Making’ project, which explores diƯerent aspects of “making” in art and architecture while carrying forward the materials and processes of traditional and modern craft in a crosscultural and cross-disciplinary context. Eleena has lectured widely, including at GSAPP Columbia University, New York, for the Fall 2019
Lecture Series and North Carolina State University (NCSU) in Spring 2022 for the Architecture Lecture Series: A Tesar Endowed Lecture on Architecture and Culture. Eleena was recently appointed Adjunct Professor at the Faculty of Architecture and Built Environment, National University of Malaysia (Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia) and School of Architecture and Building Design, Taylor’s University. Her first book, titled ‘An Essence of Place: Making Local Architecture’, was published in Autumn of 2024. The book emphasises the importance of rooting projects to place by way of exploring the experiential potential of form, material and construction and a concern for the environmental, social and economic aspects of sustainability. This book contains images of Eleena’s work as well as essays on the motivations behind, and influences on, her practice – including the importance of place and the vernacular local architecture of Malaysia – and how her work is situated within context-based design as a whole.
In 1984 he joined His Highness the Aga Khan coordinating his worldwide architectural activities for over 16 years. Hasan has been Visiting Professor at MIT and University California Berkeley., and he is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Architecture and Historic Preservation at Roger Williams University. He retired from academia in 2020.
Hasan lectures widely and was Editor-in-Chief of the international journal Mimar: Architecture in Development and Academic Editor of the International Journal of Islamic Architecture. He is editor/author of nine books including, The Mosque and the Modern World, (1997), International Style 1925-1965, (1998 and 2009), Le Corbusier, Chandigarh and The Modern City (2009), The Architecture of Habib Fida Ali (2012), and The Religious Architecture of Islam in two volumes (2022) – and has over sixty published articles in international journals and books. He currently lives in Providence, Rhode Island.
Amsterdam and New York. She is currently advising the Bahrain Authority for Culture and Antiquities (BACA) on cultural and heritage policies and is responsible for overseeing the
planning and implementation of cultural institutions and museums as well as urban rehabilitation strategies. She was the co-curator of Reclaim, Bahrain’s first participation at the 12th Venice Architecture
Biennale in 2010 and the deputy commissioner general of Heatwave Bahrain’s pavilion at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale, both awarded a Golden Lion for best national participation. She served as
the Deputy Commissioner General of the Bahrain Pavilion at the Expo Milan 2015 and Expo Osaka 2025, awarded respectively a silver medal and golden medal for Best Architecture and Landscape . Since 2015, she heads the Pearling, Testimony of an Island Economy UNESCO World Heritage project, which received the Aga Khan Award for Architecture as part of the Muharraq Revitalization project in 2019. She is the curator for the upcoming 2026 Design Doha Biennale and is a board member of the Palestinian Museum in Birzeit, Palestine
Peter Cachola Schmal
Peter Cachola Schmal is a distinguished architect, curator, and architecture journalist whose
career has significantly shaped contemporary architectural discourse in Germany and
beyond. Since 2006,
Wael Samhouri
is a Damascus-based architect, urban designer, academic, and writer whose work moves between architectural practice, teaching, urban thought, and the renewal of critical discourse on architecture in the Arab and Islamic worlds.
he has served as the Director of the Deutsches Architekturmuseum
(DAM), leading one of Europe’s foremost institutions dedicated to architecture through an ambitious program of exhibitions, events, and international collaborations. With decades of experience spanning architectural practice, academia, journalism, and curatorial leadership,
Schmal has also represented Germany on prestigious global platforms, including as General Commissioner of the German Pavilion at the 15th International Architecture Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia. His multidisciplinary perspective, shaped by an international upbringing across Germany, Indonesia, and Pakistan, continues to inform his contributions to architecture, urbanism, and cultural dialogue.
His built and written work is concerned with the continuity of meaning in contemporary architecture, with a particular focus on sacred architecture, mosque design, and the architectural questions of post-war reconstruction. He holds a B.Arch. from Damascus University, an M.Sc. in Urban Design from Pratt Institute, New York, and a Ph.D. from the Royal College of Art, London. He has founded and headed architecture departments in Syria, and has taught architectural design, theory, history, and urban design at university level. His architectural practice has produced several award-winning built projects, and his work has been recognized through awards and publications. He has served on the Aga Khan Award for Architecture technical review team and has contributed, across two cycles, to the technical review process of the Abdullatif Al Fozan Award for Mosque Architecture. Samhouri’s recent writings include Mosque Manifesto in Arabic, the bilingual An Ascending Manifesto for Post-War Rebuilding of Syria, and the co-authored books Universal Acquaintance: Towards a Contemporary View of Mosque Architecture and For All People: The Mosque as Universal Sacred Concept, both issued in Arabic and English editions.
JURY | DESIGN
Bibi Russell
is an internationally acclaimed fashion designer, social entrepreneur, and advocate for cultural heritage whose pioneering work has transformed the relationship between design, craftsmanship, and sustainable development.
Danah Abdulla
is a designer, educator and researcher interested in new narratives and practices in design that push the disciplinary boundaries and definitions of the subject. She is a Reader (Associate Professor) in Anti/Post/Decolonial Histories, Theories, Praxes at the Decolonising the Arts Institute at the University of the Arts London.
Faraz Maqsood Hamidi
is an adman by day and a poet by night. He is a multi-hyphenate creative force in Pakistan’s branding and advertising industry, and the Founder and Chief Creative Officer of The D’Hamidi Partnership — a 30+ year-old
A graduate of the London
College of Fashion, she enjoyed a distinguished career in the fashion industry across the
United Kingdom and Europe, modeling for leading designers and appearing in major
international publications before returning to Bangladesh in 1994 to dedicate her
expertise to the preservation and revitalization of traditional crafts.
Founder of Bibi Productions, established in 1995, Russell has devoted more than three
decades to empowering artisans and safeguarding endangered textile traditions. In 1996, at UNESCO in Paris, she introduced her groundbreaking philosophy “Fashion for
Development,” demonstrating how fashion can be a vehicle for poverty alleviation,
cultural preservation, environmental responsibility, and economic empowerment. The concept has since become the defining principle of her life’s work and an internationally
recognized model for sustainable development through creativity. Working directly with weavers, embroiderers, dyers, and craftspeople, she has helped modernize handwoven and environmentally responsible products while preserving their cultural authenticity.
Through innovative design interventions, she has created sustainable livelihood opportunities for thousands of artisans, particularly women, demonstrating how creativity can serve as a powerful catalyst for social and economic development. Recognized globally for advancing craft-led development, Bibi Russell was awarded the title “Designer for Development” by UNESCO and later appointed UNESCO Artist for Peace. She also serves as Ambassador of EarthDay.org, advocating for environmental responsibility through ethical design and sustainable production practices.
Her work has extended beyond Bangladesh to India, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Uzbekistan, Colombia, and several countries in West Africa, where she has collaborated with local communities to strengthen traditional knowledge systems, celebrate cultural diversity, and promote sustainable livelihoods.
Among her many honors, she received the Cross of Officer of the Order of Queen
Isabella from the King of Spain, while Asiaweek named her among the “20 People to
Watch in the Millennium.” Through exhibitions, lectures, publications, and international collaborations, Bibi Russell continues to champion a vision in which heritage, innovation, sustainability, and human dignity are woven together— demonstrating the transformative power of Fashion for Development in creating a more inclusive and equitable world.
Danah is the author of two books Design Otherwise: Transforming Design Education in the Arab Region (Bloomsbury, 2025) and Designerly Ways of Knowing: A Working Inventory of Things a Designer Should Know (Onomatopee, 2022). In 2024, her work was recognised in Zetteler’s 24 for ’24: makers and mavericks to watch. She is a founding member of the Decolonising Design platform, and founded Kalimat Magazine (2010-2016), an independent, non-profit publication about Arab thought and culture www.dabdulla.com.
award-winning ideas firm that grows brands, businesses and the bottom line.
With offices in Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad and Dubai, and through proprietary strategic and consultancy tools, he has created culturally significant advertising, branding and identity design for national, regional and international players. This includes the highly anticipated “Brand Pakistan” campaign — an exclusively commissioned image and destination branding project for the Government of Pakistan — and the launch of UAE-based PureHealth, the world’s largest integrated healthcare vertical outside the USA. As a partner to Worldwide Partners Inc. (WPI), the world’s largest network of independent agencies, Faraz ensures global resonance for his brand of creativity.
Faraz sits on the boards of various educational and trade institutions, holds an adjunct faculty position at IVS (Indus Valley School of Art & Architecture), and is the long-standing columnist behind Above-the-Line in Aurora — the world’s longest running advertising column by a single author. He is also the author of two collections of poetry (Diva & SKiN) alongside an internationally published body of verse.
His creative pursuits have taken him to TASIS (The American School in Switzerland), the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, the Royal Academy of Music and the American University of Paris/Sorbonne for comparative literature, before he majored in mass communication and advertising at Boston University — with a concentration in creative writing under the mentorship of Nobel Prize winner, Derek Walcott.
Jean-François D’Or
is graduated in industrial design at ENSAV La Cambre Brussels in 1998 since which time he has built up solid and varied experience.
Yaser Awan
Yaser is an entrepreneur with 20+ years of experience in envisioning products and devising business strategies. He has worked in media, advertisement, hardware, e-commerce, digital and development sector.
Following a project in New York lasting several months, he was taken on by Light brand where he worked closely with established and demanding designers such as Maarten Van Severen and Hans De Pelsmacker. In 2003, he set up his own industrial design studio.
His approach takes account of company imperatives as well as user needs and is tempered by the desire to reach a market; his products set out to enrich our environment. Exploring numerous materials, Jean-François D’Or brings out their beauty without ostentation. His simple, humble, unpretentious, logical objects appeal as much on for their evident, clearly perceptible design as well as their discrete poetry.
His works and edited collections includes collaborations with international brands such as Ligne Roset, Domani, Toss B, Kenzo, Maison Vervloet, Cinna, Droog design, Cruso, Vika, Schreder, Fiskars, La Rochère, Deknudt mirrors, Osram, Centre Pompidou, Serax, Interni Edition, Minale Design Strategy, The Conran Shop among others. Jean-François D’Or objects and productions have been exhibited at Milan, New York, Sao Paulo, Stockholm, Tokyo, Seoul, Paris, Brussels, Hong Kong, London.
Voted Belgian designer of the year in 2013, Jean-François D’Or continues on a steady path of flawless rigour.
He has been involved in several projects in education and entrepreneurship with organisations like Ignite, BAT, Karandaaz, DFID etc.
During his career he designed products for 100 Million plus users. He has also raised capital for his ventures and assisted a dozen startups in raising investment. He advises and trains startups on design thinking, customer centricity and business strategies. In his last role in Gaming Industry, he ran Pakistan’s only incubator for gaming studios and created pathways for young learners to explore their passion in building games. Under his leadership the learning initiatives become industry’s biggest exposure programs for youth, training more than 4000 people and conducting South Asia’s biggest Game Jams. He has also worked on games for impact, to create awareness on social and environmental issues with organisations like Populations services international and WWF.
He is currently working as Director Innovation at Takhleeq Problem Solving Institute and is also running a fund to invest in early stage startups.
JURY | ART
Deena Hammam
is an artist, educator, and museum professional working across curatorial practice, public engagement, and cultural programming. Her work focuses on creating meaningful connections between audiences, art, and architecture through research-driven and participatory experiences.
Hajra Haider Karrar
is a curator and writer invested in articulating questions that destabilize and reconfigure colonial and capital paradigms underlying knowledge production through ancestral and affective epistemes. She is curator at SAVVY Contemporary:
Dr. Nima Poovaya-Smith OBE
Nima Poovaya-Smith is a curator, writer and speaker. As founding Director of Alchemy until 2019, she undertook a number of major artistic programmes in partnership with cultural, academic and public sectors. She was previously Head of Special Projects,
At Qatar Museums and the Art Mill Museum (AMM), she has contributed to the development of exhibitions, learning initiatives, and public programs that position museums as spaces for dialogue, accessibility, and community engagement. Her practice bridges education and curatorial work, with a particular interest in how storytelling, heritage, and contemporary culture can be translated into inclusive visitor experiences.
Deena has worked across interdisciplinary projects related to architecture, identity, and social memory, including initiatives connected to Beyti Beytak and Architecture for All. Alongside her institutional work, she continues to explore artistic experimentation through drawing, installation, and research-based creative practice.
She is particularly interested in shaping opportunities for emerging creatives and young audiences in Qatar through collaborative and audience-centered cultural experiences
The Laboratory of Form-Ideas, Berlin, and the Curator of Rhythm Alliances, ninth edition of Colomboscope, 2026.
Karrar’s curatorial and collaborative projects have been featured at cultural institutions and biennales including Tate Research Centre: Asia, London 2018; Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Moscow 2014; Centre Pompidou, Paris 2017; Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester 2016-2017; Yarat Contemporary Art Space, Baku 2012; Akademie der Künst, Berlin; Lahore Biennale 02, IV Moscow Biennale for Young Art, 5th International Biennale of Contemporary Art Azerbaijan, and Kochi – Muziris Biennale 2022.
Karrar has edited multiple publications and her writings on artistic practice, and visual and media cultures are regularly published in journals, monographs, and publications.
National Media Museum, Bradford; Director of Arts, Arts Council, Yorkshire and Senior Curator, Bradford Galleries and Museums. Nima pioneered Bradford Museums’ International Collections, which include contemporary and decorative arts. She has contributed to numerous international and national publications including books and journals on subjects ranging from contemporary art, jewellery, textiles, curatorial practice and poetry.
Nima is a Trustee of Harewood House Trust and a patron of The Leeds Library. She was awarded an OBE in 2016 in the Queen’s Birthday Lists for her services to arts and museums.