Founder & Director

Zahira is an urbanist. Her work is centred on design, culture, and city-making. Growing up in apartheid South Africa, she came to understand at a young age how spaces and buildings were made to divide people. In her work, she seeks to learn, share and unite.

Zahira is a researcher, author, and publisher. Her first book, Reflections & Opportunities, was published in English and Brazilian Portuguese. It was presented in 17 cities around the world. Her Movement series of publications looked at the social, spatial and cultural dynamics that have shaped South Africa’s big cities. She has also contributed written work to the Venice Architecture Biennale, and the Tell Freedom publication. Prior to that, she served as a researcher for Sir David Adjaye’s Adjaye Africa Architecture and led his ‘Special Projects’ unit in London.

As a social entrepreneur, Zahira founded Designing for All, a public benefit organisation that promotes inclusive design and management of public infrastructure in South Africa. She is also co-founder of Open Design. In 2020, she established Cultivate, a breakthrough African wine collective and company, based in Cape Town.

Zahira advocates for beautiful and functional design, and believes it should be made for the benefit of all. As part of this vision, she conceptualised a placemaking project that re-imagined the underused and abandoned spaces at Johannesburg’s prominent Park Station, said to be Africa’s busiest transport node. She worked with city and railway authorities alongside a team of built environment professionals.

As a curator and exhibitor, Zahira was selected to represent South Africa at the 2012 International Architecture & Design Showcase in London. There, she curated an exhibition titled A Nation Under Construction, telling the story of South Africa’s contemporary urbanism, architecture and social development. Other exhibitions include Making Africa at the Guggenheim in Bilbao, and Unfinished City at the Museum of African Design in Johannesburg.

Zahira is an advisor and educator. In 2023, she judged the Architectural Review Future Projects Awards. She has also served on the judging panels for the Dezeen Design Awards and UN Habitat University Competition, amongst others. In 2017, she served as the advisor to the African Architecture Awards, and, in 2018, to African Crossroads. Zahira served on the board of advisors for the International Archive of Women in Architecture from 2019 to 2024. Her guest lectures, workshops and studios have spanned the globe, and include presentations to professional conferences such as the Rockefeller Foundation’s Urban Resilience Summit and academic institutions including the University of Oxford.

Zahira’s work has featured in the Financial Mail, Icon Magazine, Architectural Review, TV Globo Brazil, Axis Japan, Abitare Italy and Folha de São Paulo, amongst many others. In addition, her achievements have been awarded by the likes of Wallpaper*, Monocle and Design Week. She has also been noted as one of 200 Young South Africans to watch by the Mail & Guardian and featured in their Book of Women.

Zahira is currently working on her fourth publication, I See You, which will be published in digital and printed formats. It focuses on history, memory, and representational equity in the public life of cities affected by colonialism, slavery, and apartheid.