The concept of home is one of Anam Ahmed’s self-confessed 'fixations’. During her master’s programme at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP), it also became the main focus in her graduation project, Home: objects, notions & other things.
The research, supported by the Dean’s Scholarship for the academic year, received the 2020 Honor Award for Excellence in Advanced Architecture Design. ‘It comes from a place existing between worlds, trying to choose parts of those worlds that make what home means to me,’ she says. ‘The process involved exploring memories, objects, language, the freedom to make choices, an attempt to define what I hope for in my home.’
Anam Ahmed. Dream collaborators: Neri Oxman; Assemble; Lex Pott
Material sciences, particularly waste and reuse, is another area Ahmed is exploring. She sees architecture as a means to make life better for communities. This is further supported by her extra-curricular activities, which include volunteering for Yasmeen Lari’s Heritage Foundation of Pakistan and taking part in several projects in New York, from creating a garden for the Union Settlement in East Harlem to supporting communities in Jackson Heights that were disproportionately affected by Covid-19.
Ahmed was selected as a teaching associate for the summer semester at GSAPP for the AAD programme, but this was pushed back due to the ongoing pandemic, and she is currently working at renowned New York architecture studio MOS, as well as running a small design studio from her hometown of Lahore.
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