With an international portfolio of cultural projects, Asif Khan Studio negotiates multiple identities from its London baseAsif Khan Studio was shortlisted in the AR Emerging awards 2024. Read about the full shortlist hereIn 20212022, Dubai hosted the World Expo, the first time the universal exhibition had been held in the WestAsia. Surrounding the site and welcoming the events 24 million visitors into the fair were three colossal portals designed by Asif Khan Studio. The striking ultra-lightweight mesh gates, with doors each 21 metres high, were inspired by mashrabiya the latticed oriel windows used in vernacular Islamic buildings, which studio founder Asif Khan describes as extraordinary devices which provide shade, air flow and privacy. Further references abound: the latticed pattern of the portals bring to mind arish(palm leaf) construction techniques employed throughout the region, while the inspiration for the general approach to the site came from the oldround plan of Baghdad, Iraq.In the west, Islamic architecture is commonly viewed as wholly decorative; Khan argues that it is also highly engineered, sophisticated and performative. The Dubai Expo entry portals are all these things; robotically wound from carbon fibre (and therefore zero-waste), and constructed in collaboration with an aircraft engineer, they connect with the past while, says Khan, charting a direction for the future, much like Joseph Paxtons Crystal Palace or Buckminster Fullers geodesic dome ofprevious World Expos. The Arab world hasa lot to offer, says Khan. It was at the forefront of renewability long ago; all we have done is reinterpret it and show how itmight be applied at scale in the future, withmodern materials.Khan trained at the Bartlett School ofArchitecture in London and set up his practice in 2007 following postgraduate studies at the Architectural Association. Hehas taught in Japan and worked in China, Kazakhstan and West Asia, and describes home as everywhere but nowhere. Khans own identity is layered and complex: his father was from Pakistan (he was forced to leave India during Partition) and his mother East African Indian; they relocated to the UK andtrained as social workers. The studio is working on transforming a Soviet-era cinema into acultural centre in Almaty, the largest city in Kazakhstan. Ironically, the Kazakh name of the centre, Tselinny, translates to virgin lands. Here, Asif Khan Studios proposal creates space for new art forms that seek tochallenge Kazakhstans post-Soviet legacy. The existing cinema hall, with a height of 18m, will be restored as a multi-use arts space, while a small cinema, caf and rooftop restaurant will be added. The most striking element is the preservation of amural by theSoviet illustrator Evgeny Matveevich Sidorkin, which depicts traditional nomadic life in Kazakhstan inastereotypical style. The mural an instrument of colonialism isilluminated bya large glass facade. Rather than erasing the remnants of the Soviet empire, the proposal strives to provide a reminder ofamoment in time, explains Khan. He hopes that this project, and his studios work in general, can negotiate multilayered identities and provide a space for people to anchor themselves in.