PROFESSOR HANIF KARA is a practicing Structural Engineer and Professor in Practice of Architectural Technology at the Graduate School of Design, Harvard. He previously taught at KTH Stockholm and Architectural association London.
As Creative Director and co-founder of AKTII (est 1996), his particular ‘design-led’ approach, passion for research and interest in innovative form, material uses, sustainability and complex analysis methods have allowed him to work many, pioneering projects that deal with challenges faced by communities. The practice has won over 350 design awards including the RIBA Stirling Award for the Peckham Library, London in 2000 and for the Sainsbury Laboratory, Cambridge in 2012 and the Bloomberg Headquarters London 2018.
He is a fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects, Institute of Civil Engineers, Royal Academy of Engineering, Institution of Structural Engineers, the Royal Society of Arts. Formerly he was a CABE Commissioner and served as a member of the Design for London Advisory Group to the Mayor of London.
Hanif was on the Master Jury for the 2004 cycle of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture(AKAA) and currently serves on the steering committee for the AKAA. Since 2015 he has served as a review panel member of the National Centres of Competence in Research (NCCR Digital Fabrication) at ETH Zurich. He has published works widely including ‘Design Engineering’, 2008, a retrospective of AKT’s first decade, and ‘Interdisciplinary Design: New Lessons from Architecture and Engineering’, 2012, co-published with Harvard. Recently he edited ‘Deliverance of Design – making, mending and revitalising structures’, a look at the works of AKT II from 1996 – 2016. His most recent publications are ‘Design Engineering Refocused’ and the ‘Architecture of Waste’.