Photo Credit: Aga Khan University
In a recent Aga Khan University article, our client features the Karachi plastering business, Ghaffar & Sons, who have installed the “weeping plaster” on every building at AKU since the 1970s. The installation technique has been passed on through three generations, and while this small 10-person company has many clients in Karachi, AKU has been such a mainstay that Abdul Ghaffer has been able to earn and save enough money to send his four children to school.
Photo Credit: Aga Khan University
While AKU’s healthcare and educational missions lie at the core of how anchor institutions – such as hospitals and universities – support civil society, Ghaffar & Sons is one of many examples of the economic impact generated by AKU’s operations. This is no less true here in the US, but we tend to take the existence of these institutions and their benefits for granted (at least I do). In a country that is struggling to develop and sustain a civil society, these benefits are far-reaching and tend to have impact on an individual, rather than corporate, level.
Further reading on AKU’s economic impact.
Related Links:
Work Globally, Design Locally
Legacy of Great Healthcare & Design: Aga Khan University Hospital Karachi
The 2025 OpenLAB Boston studio work will be exhibited at Virginia Tech Monday, March 2nd through Wednesday, March 4th.
Please join us for the following events on Monday, March 2nd:
11:00am - Lecture with Parke MacDowell
1:00pm Lobby talk with Kevin Sullivan
This year’s studio identifies seven sites along the frayed edges of Boston’s Greenway. The Greenway is a one-mile-long linear park running through the heart of the city, reconnecting downtown Boston with its waterfront. Many of the parcels along its edges remain undeveloped and present mute, blank facades to the public realm. Addressing and repairing these edges through acts of infilling, layering, grafting, framing, and placemaking is the core focus of the studio—SUTURE.