Opened in 2014, the university has an intake of a maximum of 800 students for its four-year undergraduate degree programs. The campus is located in an urban, low-income neighbourhood with no outdoor public space on an irregularly-shaped site surrounded on two sides by open sewerage channels. Being near the airport, the site is also subject to height restrictions. To deal with the constraints, the design process deployed an architectural strategy that arranges open and closed spaces and fragmented building masses around courtyards to encourage dynamic social interaction; an urban strategy whereby semi-public facilities, like the library and auditorium, lie along the urban edge of the campus, connecting it to the neighbourhood; and an environmental strategy taking advantage of Karachi’s sea breezes.
Source: Aga Khan Trust for Culture