Routledge Series - Architecture & Urbanism in the Global South

Routledge Book Series — Series Editor

Architecture and Urbanism in the Global South published by Routledge, London, is dedicated to architectural and urban scholarship produced in and about the nations of Africa, Central and Latin America, most of Asia, and the Middle East and North Africa, regions that collectively account for 157 of the 184 recognised states in the world. Ashraf Salama and David Grierson serve as Series Editors, bringing together complementary expertise in architecture, urbanism, sustainability, and the built environment of the Global South to shape a publishing programme of international significance.

The editorial work of this series is substantive and sustained. The role involves actively identifying important, essential, and compelling works that advance knowledge in areas of architectural and urban scholarship that deserve greater international attention; engaging with prospective authors to develop book proposals that are both academically rigorous and globally relevant; reviewing proposals in depth alongside external blind peer review processes; collaborating closely with the Routledge editorial team on the approval of final manuscripts; and reviewing copyedited versions to ensure accuracy, coherence, and fidelity to the series' intellectual ambitions. This is a continuous exercise in editorial judgement, conceptual development, and scholarly stewardship.

The series is shaped by a sustained conceptual and discursive commitment. Each volume is considered not only for its individual contribution but for how it advances the series' overarching argument: that the Global South is a primary site of architectural and urban knowledge production, innovation, and critical insight. The series seeks to establish new frameworks, on heritage, housing, urban form, cultural identity, sustainability, and spatial justice, that are based on the realities of cities and societies across at least three continents.

Most of the world's architectural and urban production, place-making, and urban development is taking place in the Global South and will continue to do so for decades to come. This vast body of built production deserves the rigorous, sustained scholarly attention that this series provides, making original research on architecture and urbanism across the world's most dynamic and complex contexts available to the global professional and academic community.

Volumes in the series address a wide spectrum of topics: vernacular architecture and architectural heritage; urban traditions and historic cities; housing transformations and urban governance; the architecture of squatter settlements and informal urbanism; the impact of globalisation on cultural identity as manifested in built form; sustainable urbanism; and the works of architects and urban designers from and within the Global South. The series covers key capitals, major cities, and important settlements within Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, the Indian Sub-Continent, the southern Mediterranean and the Middle East, South America, and South Asia.

Published Titles

• Architectural Excellence in Islamic Societies: Distinction through the Aga Khan Award for Architecture — Salama & El-Ashmouni, Routledge, 2020/2024. Examines architectural excellence across Muslim societies through a critical analysis of five decades of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture, interrogating the criteria, politics, and cultural significance of one of the built environment's most prestigious international recognition programmes.

• Uncertain Regional Urbanism in Venezuela: Government, Infrastructure and Environment — Ribeiro, Routledge, 2021. Investigates the complex intersections of governance, infrastructure, and environmental conditions that have shaped regional urbanism in Venezuela, offering a critical account of urban development under conditions of political and economic instability.

• Influence and Resistance in Post-Independence Egyptian Architecture — El-Ashmouni & Salama, Routledge, 2022/2024. Traces the contested trajectories of Egyptian architecture from independence to the present, examining how local architects navigated the competing forces of nationalism, modernism, globalisation, and cultural identity across seven decades of built production.

• Urban Form and Life in Tripoli, Libya: Maintaining Cultural Heritage — Remali & Abudib, Routledge, 2022. Explores the relationship between urban form, everyday life, and cultural heritage in Tripoli, examining how the city's built fabric has evolved and how its heritage can be sustained in the face of rapid change and political disruption.

• Urban Architecture and Local Spaces in Pakistan — Ahmed, Routledge, 2023. Examines the character and evolution of urban architecture and local spatial practices in Pakistani cities, situating built form within the social, cultural, and political dynamics that have shaped the country's distinctive urban environments.

• Architecture and Urban Transformation of Historical Markets: Cases from the Middle East and North Africa — Hamza, Routledge, 2023. Investigates the architectural and urban transformation of historical markets across the MENA region, exploring how these vital social and commercial spaces have adapted — or been lost — under the pressures of modernisation, globalisation, and urban redevelopment.

• Architecture and Urbanism in a Contact Zone: Histories of Difference, Migrancy and Dwelling in Kolkata — Mukherjee Campbell, Routledge, 2024. Explores how histories of migration, cultural encounter, and transculturation have shaped urban space, domestic architecture, and cultural modernity in Kolkata from the early colonial period to the era of economic liberalisation.

• "Patterns" of Threshold Spaces in the Historical City of Jeddah — Massoud, Routledge, 2025. Investigates the meaning and spatial logic of threshold spaces in Jeddah's historic city, examining the relationship between public open spaces and residential units through the lens of Christopher Alexander's theory of patterns.

Forthcoming Titles

• Brick Architecture Craft in Nineteenth-Century South India: Reading Buildings as Archives — Joseph, Routledge, July 2026. Explores the brick architecture of nineteenth-century South India through the lens of tectonics and materiality, tracing the hybrid histories of indigenous and colonial intersections embedded in the built fabric of the region.

• Ecomuseums and Living Heritage in China: Reclaiming Memory and Identity — Li & Selim, Routledge, August 2026. Examines what happens when the community-led ecomuseum model encounters China's millennia-old top-down social system, exploring how living heritage practices can reclaim memory and identity within a complex political and cultural landscape.