Events

Swat Participatory Council (SPC), Architect & Project Coordinator Sameeta Ahmed and Project Management team of Shaukat & Associates have been honoured to receive a 2025 Nomination for the Aga Khan Award for Architecture for their project of conservation of the community-owned Chinar Mosque in Chamtalai village in the Khwazakhela sub-region of the Swat Valley in the Khyber-Pukhtunkhwa province, Pakistan. Chinar Mosque is one of only 12 remaining mosques in the folk vernacular style once common in this region. In 2009 this area was shattered by the “War on Terror” between the Pakistani state and the Taliban, who had declared an independent state in Swat. And then in 2010 there was severe flooding. These events caused massive social and economic upheaval, including the displacement of two million people who fled the violence to other areas of Pakistan. While this folk vernacular conservation project was completed several years after these events, their community impact remained evident, with the society profoundly altered, and still exhausted and recovering. Community participation is the guiding philosophy of the work of the Swat Participatory Council (SPC). Sameeta Ahmed, Architect/Project Coordinator, Project Management firm Shaukat & Associates and SPC have used this approach in previous projects we have done together. In the Chinar Mosque project, we successfully used our participatory model to educate, persuade, engage, and partner with the Chamtalai community before and during the project. We overcame initial resistance and ultimately achieved enthusiastic, active community agreement and then involvement in the conservation of the mosque. The conservation of Chinar Mosque was funded by Prince Claus Fund (PCF) Netherlands. Our project also elevated the profile of architectural conservation in the region and helped revive Swat Valley traditional crafts that were being lost. In fostering local pride and a sense of identity drawn from a heritage mosque that reflects the multicultural history of the region, we also helped foster countervailing influences that instilled the value of a pluralistic multi-faith heritage, here in a region where an extremist religious ideology had become embedded. Our project also brought tourists to the village to visit the conserved mosque, with associated positive economic impact. Thus, our project had social, cultural, and economic impacts that extend well beyond those of a simple conservation project. These benefits continue today. Read More