This open online course, Engaging Communities: Works of the Built Environment and Their Users, aims at exploring various aspects of the relationships that can - and do - evolve between works of the built environment and the communities they may affect. It specifically examines several Aga Khan Award for Architecture (AKAA) winning projects. As for the communities affected by these projects, they consist of preexisting communities as well as communities that have come into being because of these projects.

The course will address issues that include defining what is a community, as well as exploring how physical interventions in the built environment, whether relating to architecture, urbanism, landscape architecture, or infrastructure, may help in developing, preserving, and enhancing communities. The course also explores a wide range of communities. These include ones defined by places where people live, work, or even congregate. It moreover sheds light on fragile communities defined by challenges such as poverty or forced displacement. In addition, the course looks into the relationships that evolve between communities on the one hand, and between various factors that help define them on the other hand, and that cover a wide range including heritage and history, art, social bonds, education, and economic activities.

This is the fourth Massive Open Online Course produced by Edraak focussing on Aga Khan Award for Architecture winning projects and available on Archnet. The other three are: The Architecture of the Mosque: Historical Roots and Modern Influences, Enhancing the Quality of Urban Life: Fifteen Winning Projects of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture, and Client and Designers: Models of Patronage in the Built Environment.

Presented by Mohammad al-Asad, featured on the learning platform Edraak and sponsored by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture Education Programme.