ArchNet
Encyclopedia
Austin, Texas
Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of :Texas and the seat of Travis County. Located in Central Texas on the eastern edge of the American Southwest, it is the fourth-largest city in Texas and the 14th most populous city in the United States. It was the third-fastest-growing large city in...
and the MIT School of Architecture and Planning in co-operation with the Aga Khan Trust for Culture
Aga Khan Trust for Culture
The Aga Khan Trust for Culture is an agency of the Aga Khan Development Network . It focuses on the revitalization of communities in the Muslim world—physical, social, cultural, and economic...
. It provides users with resources on architecture, urban design and development in the Muslim world to all users free of charge.
History and Conceptualization
ArchNet is an initiative of the Aga Khan Trust for CultureAga Khan Trust for Culture
The Aga Khan Trust for Culture is an agency of the Aga Khan Development Network . It focuses on the revitalization of communities in the Muslim world—physical, social, cultural, and economic...
(AKTC), an agency of the Aga Khan Development Network
Aga Khan Development Network
The Aga Khan Development Network is a group of private, non-denominational development agencies that seek to empower communities and individuals to improve living conditions and opportunities, in sub-Saharan Africa, Central and South Asia, and the Middle East...
(AKDN). Through various programmes, partnerships, and initiatives, the AKTC seeks to improve the built environment in Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
and Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
where there is a significant Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
presence. ArchNet complements the work of the Trust by making its resources digitally accessible to individuals worldwide.
ArchNet was conceptualized in 1998 during a series of discussions between His Highness the Aga Khan
Aga Khan IV
Prince Karim, Aga Khan IV, NPk, NI, KBE, CC, GCC, GCIH, GCM is the 49th and current Imam of the Shia Imami Nizari Ismaili Muslims. He has held this position under the title of Aga Khan since July 11, 1957, when, at the age of 20, he succeeded his grandfather, Sultan Mahomed Shah Aga Khan...
, the President of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Charles Vest, and the Dean of MIT’s School of Architecture and Planning, William Mitchell. The foundations of ArchNet were predicated on remarks made by the Aga Khan in Istanbul
Istanbul
Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...
in 1983, about his desire to make available the extensive dossiers resulting from the nominations for the Aga Khan Award for Architecture
Aga Khan Award for Architecture
The Aga Khan Award for Architecture is an architectural prize established by Aga Khan IV in 1977. It aims to identify and reward architectural concepts that successfully address the needs and aspirations of Islamic societies in the fields of contemporary design, social housing, community...
(AKAA) for the purpose of “[assisting] those institutions where the professionals of the future are trained.”
The purpose of the website is to create a viable platform upon which knowledge pertaining to the field of architecture can be shared. ArchNet aims to expand the general intellectual frame of reference to transcend the barriers of geography, socio-economic status and religion, and to foster a spirit of collaboration and open dialogue. ArchNet therefore manifests many of the Aga Khan’s values and principles regarding not only rural and urban development but also pluralism and the role of culture, while exemplifying MIT’s OpenCourseWare
MIT OpenCourseWare
MIT OpenCourseWare is an initiative of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to put all of the educational materials from its undergraduate- and graduate-level courses online, partly free and openly available to anyone, anywhere. MIT OpenCourseWare is a large-scale, web-based publication of...
initiative, giving everyone access to its course material free of charge.
The website came to fruition in 2000 and was officially launched on September 27, 2002 by Lawrence Summers
Lawrence Summers
Lawrence Henry Summers is an American economist. He served as the 71st United States Secretary of the Treasury from 1999 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. He was Director of the White House United States National Economic Council for President Barack Obama until November 2010.Summers is the...
, then President of Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
, Charles Vest, then President of MIT, and the Aga Khan. It continues to grow with new institutional partners in North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
and abroad as well as individual users. Today it has over seventy-five thousand users — fifty percent of whom are students or teachers — representing over one hundred fifty countries and averaging over five thousand unique visitors a day.
Partners and Resources
ArchNet makes accessible an extensive collection of resources from numerous participating institutions for students, educators, and professionals, ad is a particularly useful tool for individuals who have limited access to architectural publications. The online library first consisted of two hundred thousand images held by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture and four hundred thousand held by MIT and Harvard University, but has since swelled considerably because of individuals who continually contribute to the library. The library is made up of photographs, line drawings, CAD drawings, published papers, video, and text resources including the Dictionary of Islamic Architecture. A considerable portion of the resources come from the archives of the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture. Other important institutions that share their extensive archives include the Department of Architecture and Design at the American University of BeirutAmerican University of Beirut
The American University of Beirut is a private, independent university in Beirut, Lebanon. It was founded as the Syrian Protestant College by American missionaries in 1866...
, the Department of Architecture at the American University of Sharjah
American University of Sharjah
American University of Sharjah is an independent, not-for-profit coeducational higher educational institution in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, founded in 1997 by Dr. Sultan bin Mohamed Al-Qasimi, Member of the UAE Supreme Council and Ruler of Sharjah...
, the Center for the Study of the Built Environment, the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Damascus
University of Damascus
The University of Damascus is the largest and oldest university in Syria, located in the capital Damascus and has campuses in other Syrian cities. It was founded in 1923 through the merger of the School of Medicine and the Institute of Law , also making it the oldest university in modern-day Syria...
, the Erciyes University
Erciyes University
Erciyes University is a Turkish institute of higher education located in Kayseri, Turkey. As of 4 April 2006, a total of 28,474 students were studying for their bachelors degree and postgraduate studies.-Background:...
Architectural Association, the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage
Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage
The Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage is an autonomous non-governmental Indian NGO that seeks to preserve Indian Art and Cultural heritage...
, the Faculty of Architecture of Istanbul Technical University
Istanbul Technical University
Istanbul Technical University is an international technical university located in Istanbul, Turkey. It is the world's third oldest technical university dedicated to engineering sciences as well as social sciences recently, and is one of the most prominent educational institutions in Turkey...
, the Department of Architecture at Middle East Technical University
Middle East Technical University
Middle East Technical University is a public technical university located in Ankara, Turkey...
, the Department of Architecture at Misr International University
Misr International University
is an undergraduate and comprehensive private university located in the suburbs of Cairo. Established in 1996, in Maadi, The University changed its location to Cairo-Ismailia Road...
, the Rizvi College of Architecture, and the Faculty of the Built Environment at Universiti Teknologi MARA
Universiti Teknologi MARA
Universiti Teknologi MARA is a coeducational public university with its main campus located in Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia.It is the flagship institution of the Universiti Teknologi MARA...
in Malaysia.
Because of the Trust’s programming activities, such as the Historic Cities Support Programme and the Aga Khan Award for Architecture, significant case studies are conducted, yielding valuable research that is made available through ArchNet. The collection also comprises the archives of the French architect-planner Michel Ecohard and the Egyptian architect Hassan Fathy
Hassan Fathy
Hassan Fathy was a noted Egyptian architect who pioneered appropriate technology for building in Egypt, especially by working to re-establish the use of mud brick and traditional as opposed to western building designs and lay-outs...
, winner of the first AKAA Chairman’s Award in 1980, as well as many others.
Architectural schools outside of North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
make up a significant body of partners that have supported ArchNet since its inception. In fact, institutions in Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, Jordan
Jordan
Jordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan , Al-Mamlaka al-Urduniyya al-Hashemiyya) is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan. The country borders Saudi Arabia to the east and south-east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and the West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing...
, Lebanon
Lebanon
Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...
, Malaysia, Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
and Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
were among the original members when the project first began. ArchNet has also worked closely with and in support of “laboratory” environments at schools in Tajikistan
Tajikistan
Tajikistan , officially the Republic of Tajikistan , is a mountainous landlocked country in Central Asia. Afghanistan borders it to the south, Uzbekistan to the west, Kyrgyzstan to the north, and China to the east....
, Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
, and Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina , sometimes called Bosnia-Herzegovina or simply Bosnia, is a country in Southern Europe, on the Balkan Peninsula. Bordered by Croatia to the north, west and south, Serbia to the east, and Montenegro to the southeast, Bosnia and Herzegovina is almost landlocked, except for the...
, providing them with hardware, software, digital cameras, and other resources.
Site Content
Augmenting its vast digital image library, ArchNet includes a variety of tools and features that facilitate interaction and sharing between its users. A calendarCalendar
A calendar is a system of organizing days for social, religious, commercial, or administrative purposes. This is done by giving names to periods of time, typically days, weeks, months, and years. The name given to each day is known as a date. Periods in a calendar are usually, though not...
, which is maintained by ArchNet members indicates events of interest to the architectural community such as surveys, competitions, fellowships, lectures, symposia, and calls for papers and participation in conferences. Discussion forums are integrated so that all website resources can be attached to specific forums. The website also features a career
Career
Career is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as a person's "course or progress through life ". It is usually considered to pertain to remunerative work ....
s section, listing jobs related to architecture, urban planning
Urban planning
Urban planning incorporates areas such as economics, design, ecology, sociology, geography, law, political science, and statistics to guide and ensure the orderly development of settlements and communities....
, education
Education
Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...
, and allied fields. The group workspaces facilitate collaborative project work through ArchNet.
Institutional sections highlight projects, research, courses and publications of ArchNet partners. The course syllabi page gives access to course information with a special emphasis on Islamic architecture
Islamic architecture
Islamic architecture encompasses a wide range of both secular and religious styles from the foundation of Islam to the present day, influencing the design and construction of buildings and structures in Islamic culture....
course curricula. This information is contributed by ArchNet members and provides extensive reading, bibliographic information, and course outlines from around the world.
ArchNet-IJAR
The ArchNet International Journal of Architectural Research (IJAR) is an online academic blind reviewed publication on architecture, planning and built environment studies. The journal “aims at strengthening ties between scholars from different parts of the world” as well as bridging the gap between the theory and practice of Architecture with a special focus on architecture and planning in the developing world. The concept of the journal was first developed in 1999 when Shiraz Allibhai, then a project officer with the Aga Khan Trust for Culture, was responsible for coordinating the efforts of creating ArchNet. The journal was developed at the MIT School of Architecture and Planning with the support of the Aga Khan Trust for Culture and debuted in March 2007 and is currently under the editorship of Ashraf M. Salama. It is published three times a year (in March, July and November) on the internet by ArchNet.The journal typically features articles written by architects, interior designers, planners, and landscape architects working at both public and private institutions. It addresses academics, practitioners, and students of architecture and interior design and in general those who are “interested in developing their understanding and enhancing their knowledge about how environments are designed, created, and used in physical, social, cultural, economic, and aesthetic terms”.