During his last workshop for our master program, we sat down with our guest professor Nabeel Hamdi, participatory planning pioneer and professor at Oxford Brookes University, for a quick interview about how approaches to participation have changed over the years. Want more? Watch the lecture he gave to our students last March on Participation & Governance, read his testimonial on Design Without Borders and check out his most recent book, The Spacemaker’s Guide to Big Change: Design and Improvisation in Development Practice.
Nabeel Hamdi is professor Emeritus of Housing and Urban Development at Oxford Brookes University, where he set up the highly successful Masters in Development Practice in 1992. After obtaining his degree at the Architectural Association in London in 1968, the Afghanistan-born architect worked for the Greater London Council, and his award-winning housing projects established his reputation in participatory design and planning. Today he is a teaching fellow at The Development Planning Unit, University College London, has been an Arup Fellow at the University of Cape Town and is adjunct professor at the National University of Technology, Trondhiem, Norway. An advocate of small-scale change at grass-roots level, Nabeel has consulted on participatory action planning and upgrading of slums in cities to all major international development agencies, and to NGOs worldwide. He is the author of several landmark publications, including Small Change and Housing without Houses.