A designer and researcher, Parham Karimi holds a diploma in Architecture Technology from the TAFE Institute at the University of New South Wales in Australia and a Bachelor of Environmental Design, Minoring in Sustainability in Design, from OCAD University in Toronto, Canada. Parham received his MArch degree at John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture at the University of Toronto. His written works and visual artworks have been published in the journal Inquiries (Boston, US), Hamshahri Memari, Journal of Architecture and Urbanism (Tehran, Iran), and Globe & Mail Magazine (Toronto, Canada). Parham is interested in bringing difficult issues that are central to the practice of architecture to larger audiences through exhibitions, design, research project and photography. In 2013, he received the Canadian Sony World Photography Award, participated in assembling the tourism master plan of Guelmim region (Morocco) with professor Aziza Chaouni, and was part of a team from OCAD University in Toronto participating in the research project: Active Design, Affordable Designs for Affordable Housing, published by the Center for Active Design in New York. In 2014, Parham was awarded John Yamada memorial fellowship at the University of Toronto, and his thesis project proposal was awarded the Peter Prangnell scholarship from the Department of Architecture at University of Toronto. Examining a series of case studies from Iran and Morocco, this thesis proposes a model for women's multi-purpose handicraft cooperative buildings in less developed areas within the Islamic world. Enriched with ethnographic research, his thesis also provides a lens through which to study sustainable tourism in the MENA region.

--Parham Karimi