Lecture Oct. 15 to focus on how architecture schools address poverty

Zainab Faruqui Ali, Ph.D., professor of architecture in Saudi Arabia and Bangladesh and guest lecturer at the University of Illinois at Chicago, will discuss how architecture schools are addressing issues of poverty during a free lecture at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 15, at College of DuPage.

Sponsored by the College's Architecture program and the American Institute of Architects Northeast Illinois Chapter, the lecture will take place in the Technical Education Center, Room 1038B.

Ali will discuss how architecture students need to study the slums and propose architectural, urban design and related solutions. Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh for example, has more than 40 percent of its population residing in the slums. Students at one school of architecture in Dhaka are completing extensive research and preparing design proposals for several slums. This type of endeavor has become part of the school's fourth-year architectural curriculum, which is a pioneering step among architecture schools in the country.

Ali obtained her Ph.D. from the Architectural Association, London, and her undergraduate degree from the University of Illinois at Chicago. She has worked for various architecture firms in the U.S. and Bangladesh and has been teaching architecture for the past 20 years. She has been active in researching sustainable aspects of traditional architecture as well as the low cost building materials.

For more information about the lecture, contact Associate Professor of Architecture Mark Pearson at (630) 942-2763 or email pearson@cod.edu.