Amira Osman will deliver a keynote lecture at the GNPT VI Consultation
Professor Amira Omer Siddig Osman is a highly expressive Sudanese/South African architect, lecturer, and researcher. She is currently a professor at the Tshwane University of Technology in Pretoria, holding the Research Chair in Spatial Transformation (Positive Change in the Built Environment) and serves as Joint Coordinator of the International Group CIB W104 Open Building Implementation.
She practiced as an architect in Khartoum (Sudan) from 1988 to 1997 participated in a number of projects in South Africa including designs for social housing. In 2004, she received her Ph.D. in Architecture at the University of Pretoria with a study on “Space, Place and Meaning in Northern Riverain Sudan”, which won the Neill Powell Award for the best completed doctorate.
Professor Osman has held academic positions for about 30 years, previously at the University of Khartoum, the University of Pretoria and the University of Johannesburg, where she established the Housing and Urban Environments research field. In 2005, she was one of the conference conveners for the World Congress of Housing in Pretoria; in 2012, for the Congress on Sustainable Human(e) Settlements: the Urban Challenge in Johannesburg, and in 2020, for the 9th International Conference on Appropriate Technology (ICAT) in Pretoria.
A rated researcher with the South African National Research Foundation, she was awarded the South African Institute of Architects (SAIA) President’s Award for Meritorious Achievement in 2014.
Among her publications, she has books on the Sudan in African Architecture, (ed.) Architecture and Agency, and (ed.) Magic Religion and Climate Change. Professor Osman believes that the architectural profession has a critical role to play in the achievement of human settlements that are more equitable, more beautiful and more functional. The belief that the profession has the potential to offer both technical and social expertise towards these aims is the driving force behind her research projects and in her professional roles.
We look forward to listening to Professor Osman’s insights on vibrating cities.
