Moved by the plight of non-literate young men let down by the system and subject to depression, violence, and/or drug abuse, Rushda Tariq Qureshi decided to devote her zakat donations (tithing) to helping turn lives around through training in tailoring. Relatives and friends joined her, and with their pooled resources she established the Vision Pakistan initiative.

After fifteen years operating in rented office spaces, she was able to commission this custom-designed facility in Ghauri Town, a post-2000 development about 10 kilometres from Islamabad. Alongside the vocational training, its holistic year-long programme supplies meals, teaches literacy, and uses daily chores to instil skills for social independence such as critical thinking, time management, cleanliness, and tolerance, while also encouraging a peace-focused understanding of Islam.

Qureshi’s chosen architect was Mohammad Saifullah Siddiqui, who had designed her family home. Together they swiftly agreed on an efficient plan to house five flexible classrooms, a dining room, recreation spaces, management offices, exhibition areas, two shops, and a rooftop prayer area with a student-maintained kitchen garden. The shops offer students the chance to take their first commercial orders, and some spaces can be rented out, for financial sustainability. The structural system – in-situ concrete frame with brick infill – is seismic-resistant. A triple-height staircase atrium, with a tall anchor tree and other greenery, unifies the spaces and, along with operable windows, helps drive passive ventilation.

Although Qureshi first suggested Pakistan’s historic brick architecture as stylistic inspiration, Siddiqui drew primarily from Islamabad’s 1960s modernism. The facades are a layered grid. Pierced window screens (jaalis) lend privacy and an element of joy. Repeated in the stairwell, these screens were locally made and powder-coated in colours that reference neighbourhood vernacular features. Each pattern is symbolic: the blue jaalis, of Islam; the green ones, of Islamabad’s modernist buildings; the yellow rattan-like ones, of craft; and the plain-weave red ones, of the school itself.

The care in detailing is exceptional for such a low-cost project. The grid continues inside through fine strips of marble inlaid in the hard-wearing terrazzo flooring, and the entrance steps have marble trim – all locally donated offcuts. Even the ceiling-mounted electrical conduits align with the same grid.

With forty to fifty male students aged sixteen to thirty-five benefiting from the school each year, Qureshi hopes to extend her initiative’s reach by building a women’s facility on an adjacent empty site.

Jury Citation

“Two people – one an experienced educator, the other a young practising architect – work together and invent a new wellspring of respect, a new skills training centre, a place where young people feel that they matter, where not-yet-discovered talents will be trained and encouraged.

The educator, Rushda Tariq Qureshi, had a vision: to educate, to involve the youth, and to form a community where students will feel useful and valued.

The architect, Mohammad Saifullah Siddiqui of DB Studios, was trusted with the task of understanding Rushda’s vision. Together they transformed a plot of land close to public transport and invented a building that would not only contain a new type of education, but be full of light, spatially interesting, economically efficient, and highly distinct.

The six-storey building’s two lowest floors, with their future-proofing storefronts, are designed to relate to the major street. Arranged across the storeys above, the cared-for, plant-filled classrooms and prayer hall interlink and are visually connected through the 10-metre-high atrium. Students can see each other, benefiting from being able to observe each other’s training and progress, aware that they are part of a caring community. The roof-level dining area and kitchen provide precious opportunities for further personal development beyond the vocational programme.

The life within this three-dimensional cube is held by strategically important environmental values: good natural light, cross ventilation, solar protection, low maintenance costs, and robust materials.

The architectural expression of this new building is provided by its concrete screen, held in front of the two street facades. This applied grid of 9 squares high and 10 squares long both protects the interior and expresses this contemporary building to the city. It does this by reinterpreting the familiar and historic jaalis, metal screens, both in various geometric patterns and in different colours. This combination of interpreting history to provide a visually controlled, yet joyful facade gives this building an easily recognisable and distinct surface.”

Source: Aga Khan Trust for Culture