Ozayr Saloojee

Ozayr (b. Johannesburg, South Africa) is an Associate Professor of Architecture at Carleton University in Ottawa, a co-director of the Carleton Urban Research Lab, cross-appointed faculty at the university’s Institute for African Studies and affiliate faculty in Carleton’s Center for the Study of Islam. In 2021, he was appointed as the Journal of Architectural Education’s Associate Editor of Design, and in 2023, as an Adjunct Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture at the University of Minnesota. He taught for twelve years at the University of Minnesota’s School of Architecture, where he was the 2014-2016 Imagine Chair in the Arts, Design and Humanities, and affiliate faculty in Landscape Architecture and Religious Studies.

At Carleton (since 2017), he teaches courses in design, urbanism and history & theory, representation and drawing, exploring an architecture enacted otherwise, where design is a practice of epistemic dreaming and transformation. He is interested in architecture’s entanglements with fuller material, cultural and political worlds, and has long been preoccupied with the question of “fit” and its attendant ecosystem of power, authority, privilege, diaspora, borders and belonging. His research and creative practice revolve around politically contested terrains, infrastructure and landscapes, and he maintains an active scholarly interest in the art and architecture of the Islamic world. He has led studios and seminars on future scenarios for the Great Lakes, on the hydro-politics of Palestine, on water, equity and urban transformation in Istanbul, on refusal, labour and the mining landscapes of Johannesburg, on drawing and the visual culture of Andalucia (Granada, Cordoba and Sevilla), on urban and design-justice and on the colonial footprints of museums.

His creative, curatorial and academic practice has been presented at venues in Canada, the United States, Turkey, Europe, Africa, Korea and Japan, with authored and co-authored works published by Oxford University Press, the University of Toronto Press, Set Margins; Press, Transmediale, Ashgate,  and A2. He recently guest edited a volume of AD, titled “Architectures of Refusal,” and is currently working on a manuscript (with Professor Jamie Vanucchi from Cornell University) on Design Research for Uncertain Futures (Oro, 2024). His teaching, research and service have received recognition from the American Institute of Architects (AIA), the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA), the AIA-Minneapolis, the Architectural Research Centers Consortium (ARCC) and Architect Magazine. He served as a founding and core-team member for the “Fluid Boundaries” collaborative, which was shortlisted to represent Canada’s contribution to the 2021 Venice Architecture Biennale. With the HiLo/YOW+ collective, Ozayr was part of the team shortlisted to represent Canada at the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale. A member of Dark Matter University, his teaching, research and creative practice was part of the DMU contribution to the 2023 Lisbon Architecture Triennale.