Beyond buildings: Aga Khan Award for Architecture brings global design conversation to Singapore

Singapore, 18 September 2026 – Architects, designers, engineers, academics and members of the wider community gathered at the Asian Civilisations Museum on 15 September for Beyond Buildings: The Aga Khan Award for Architecture, an evening exploring how architecture can strengthen communities, respond to climate change and shape the places in which people live, work and belong.

Organised by the Aga Khan Award for Architecture and Ismaili CIVIC Southeast Asia, with the Asian Civilisations Museum as venue partner, the event brought together Farrokh Derakhshani, Director of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture; Wong Mun Summ, Founding Director of WOHA; Sarah Ichioka, Founding Director of Desire Lines; Dr Hossein Rezai, Global Design Director at Ramboll and Milan Research Lab; and Associate Professor Gareth Doherty of the National University of Singapore.

The discussion began with the purpose of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture itself. Established in 1977, the Award was described not simply as a recognition of individual buildings, but as a form of cultural infrastructure – one that asks architects, clients, users and communities to consider architecture in its wider social, environmental and cultural context.

Its three-year cycle allows projects to be examined after ideas have become lived realities. Independent master juries consider hundreds of nominations before shortlisted projects undergo detailed on-site review. Reviewers visit the projects, speak with users and contributors, examine construction and craft, and report back to a multidisciplinary jury.

“The Award has never been only about the building itself,” said Farrokh Derakhshani. “We look at what came before it, what happens around it and what follows from it – the wider social and cultural context in which it sits. That is why the process is deliberately rigorous and interdisciplinary."

That process deliberately brings together different forms of expertise. Architects sit alongside engineers, social scientists, academics, artists and thinkers, often approaching the same project from very different perspectives. The value, speakers observed, lies not in eliminating those differences, but in allowing them to sharpen collective judgment.

Pluralism emerged as one of the evening’s recurring themes. Rather than seeing disagreement as something merely to be tolerated, the discussion considered how different perspectives can strengthen understanding – whether within an award jury, a design team or a community.

For Wong Mun Summ, the Award’s influence has also extended well beyond the moment of recognition. Reflecting on WOHA’s 2007 Aga Khan Award, he recalled how the experience led to new relationships, invitations and professional opportunities, including connections in Dhaka that continued years later.

“What stayed with me about receiving the Award was not simply the recognition, but the relationships that followed,” Wong said. “It opened conversations, friendships and opportunities in places we might never otherwise have encountered. That is one of the lasting values of an award like this – it connects people and ideas well beyond a single project.”

The panel also broadened the definition of architecture itself. Landscape, infrastructure, conservation, employment and social services were discussed not as peripheral concerns, but as part of the built environment’s wider impact.

Associate Professor Gareth Doherty reflected on the importance of the Award as a resource for students, particularly because it documents projects in places that have historically sat outside the traditional architectural canon.

“One of the great strengths of the Award is the body of knowledge it has created around projects and places that have often sat outside the conventional architectural canon,” he said. “For students, these examples help us think about architecture through people, culture, landscape and lived experience – not simply through buildings as objects.”

Climate adaptation was similarly framed as more than a technical question. Speakers discussed projects that used local materials, modular construction, planting, shade and landscape interventions to respond to environmental pressures while supporting livelihoods and community resilience.

The conversation also challenged conventional measures of return on investment, suggesting that health, wellbeing, social value and climate resilience should form part of how development is assessed.

“When we talk about climate-responsive design, we need to look beyond the initial financial returns of a building,” said Sarah Ichioka. “The real return on investment also includes health, capacity for resilience, social equity, livelihoods and the quality of life we create over time. If we begin to value those outcomes, we make very different decisions about the places we build.”

Dr Hossein Rezai brought the engineering perspective to the discussion, highlighting both the value of interdisciplinary collaboration and the opportunities – and responsibilities – created by emerging technologies.

Artificial intelligence, the panel observed, is already changing the way architects and engineers analyse options and develop solutions. But while routine technical tasks may increasingly be automated, human responsibility, interpretation, verification and ethical judgment remain essential.

“AI will undoubtedly change how architects and engineers work, just as calculators and computers did before it,” Rezai said. “What it does not remove is responsibility. We will still need human judgment to ask the right questions, interpret the answers, verify them and understand the consequences of the choices we make.”

For Zain Fancy, President of the Ismaili Council for Southeast Asia, the gathering reflected a shared interest in the relationship between the built environment and the quality of community life.

“What resonated throughout the evening was the idea that the places we create should ultimately serve people and strengthen communities,” he said. “That is very much aligned with the spirit of Ismaili CIVIC – bringing people together, working across differences and asking how each of us can contribute to more inclusive, resilient and caring communities.”

The evening offered no single model to replicate for Singapore. Instead, speakers stressed the importance of understanding context: asking how ideas developed elsewhere might inform local questions around density, climate, public space, heritage and community without simply copying solutions.

The discussion returned repeatedly to a simple idea – that architecture is ultimately about more than buildings. It is about the relationships, livelihoods, memories and possibilities that grow around them.

As the Aga Khan Award for Architecture approaches its 50th anniversary in 2027, the evening also looked ahead. Rather than treating the milestone only as a retrospective, speakers reflected on how the Award might continue to provide a space for dialogue, optimism and new ways of imagining the places people will inherit.

NOTES

The Aga Khan Award for Architecture is a programme of the Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC), which has a wide range of activities aimed at the preservation and promotion of the material and spiritual heritage of Muslim societies. AKTC is part of the Aga Khan Development Network, a group of private development agencies working to empower communities and individuals, often in disadvantaged circumstances, to improve living conditions and opportunities, especially in South and Central Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East.

Ismaili CIVIC is a global initiative of the Ismaili community. Members of Ismaili communities around the world unite around a mission to serve humanity by rendering service to improve the quality of life of the communities in which they live, reflective of the Ismaili ethic of civic engagement and good citizenship.