This seminar critically examines the ethical and philosophical dimensions of practice in the built environment, moving across multiple scales- systems of power, belief, and identity. It interrogates the power dynamics, ideological frameworks, and cultural tensions that shape ethical decision-making and its implications for spatial design and management.
Addressing different conceptual frameworks and how ethics are derived and adopted individually and collectively, the seminar integrates critical readings, case studies, and participatory exercises-such as role-playing and reflective drawing-to engage participants in confronting real-world ethical dilemmas, analyzing their dimensions, and crafting frameworks for ethical decision-making.
The seminar centralizes the following questions:
What does it mean to act ethically in the built environment?
Rather than treating ethics as abstract or universal, the seminar positions ethical practice as deeply contextual and relational, shaped by historical, political, and cultural forces. It focuses on the practical challenges and opportunities of applying ethical frameworks to real-world scenarios, asking participants to reflect on their roles and responsibilities as active agents embedded in complex systems.
How can ethical practice be guided toward spatial justice?
Looking through systems of power, belief, and identity, the module explores how they shape spatial and social inequities. It aims to critically examine positionality and agency to inform ethical decision-making by situating and deconstructing these systems.
How can we think through pluriversal ethical frameworks to move beyond the limitations of ethical practice?
By engaging with a variety of ethical perspectives—religious, environmental, and intersectional—this seminar explores how different ethical systems can coexist, interact, and sometimes conflict, highlighting how they respond to the specificities of local cultures, identities, and priorities. In doing so, it encourages participants to think beyond a single universal approach and embrace multiple ways of understanding and practicing ethics.
Analyze the major trends in the history of ethics research, and various domains of application, and be able to work toward ethical solutions in design and urban practice more broadly
Identify the complex ways in which extractivist logics manifest themselves in urban environments, and use the tools from spatial, social, and ecological justice to enact ethical forms of engagement;
Is an architect, urban researcher, and educator based in Cairo, Egypt. She is a cofounder of BIAS-AME, where she serves as programs director. As a researcher and practitioner, she engages in interdisciplinary projects focused on spatial politics, heritage conservation and management, and advocacy for urban justice in marginalized communities. With over a decade of teaching experience across various academic institutions, Salma has cultivated a strong interest in critical methodologies in urban pedagogy—an approach she actively integrates into her work at BIAS-AME.
Mohamed Abo YoussefIs a historian specializing in the modern Middle East, with research interests in Islamic modernism, Islamic thought, and the social and intellectual history of modern Egypt, particularly in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He completed his Master of Arts in Islamic Studies at McGill University, with a thesis titled “Masking Islamist Politics: Pseudo-Authenticity and Producing al-Marʾa al-Muslima in Zaynab al-Ghazālī’s Writings in the Twentieth Century.” Currently, he is an Adjunct Professor in the Department of History at the American University in Cairo and a researcher with the Patterns of Cairo project.