The Affective Agency of Public Space

Dr. Asma Mehan is an architect, researcher, and educator interested in architectural humanities and critical urban studies. She is an Assistant Professor at Texas Tech University, College of Architecture (TTU CoA). She is the author of the books Tehran: from Sacred to Radical (London: Routledge, 2022) and Kuala Lumpur: Community, Infrastructure, and Urban Inclusivity (London: Routledge, 2020).
She was previously awarded four highly selective fellowships, including the Scientific Employment Stimulus Individual fellowship (CEEC IND), funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), and the Urban Citizenship Fellowship supported by the Municipality of Amsterdam and the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences (NIAS-KNAW) among others. Her research reaches academic audiences through international exhibitions, artistic venues, policy toolkits, visual media, journalistic blogs, and online outlets.

"Asma Mehan's book explores the relevance of a high-quality, walkable public space network that offers the urban stage for social encounter and dialogue. It uses comparative case study analysis to investigate two great cities: Amsterdam and Houston. Read it!"
Steffen Lehmann, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

"The physical and cultural interaction between public space and mixed social, ethnic, and religious groups is a crucial issue for cities in the early 21st century. At the crossroads of urban studies and architectural theory, Asma Mehan's volume offers an essential contribution to understanding those practices involving public spaces' occupation by citizens of various backgrounds and the intervention of effective governance by authorities in Europe and the United States. Henceforth, anyone dealing with multicultural cities will have a formidably effective investigation and interpretation tool."
Sergio Pace, Politecnico di Torino