About Mania Taher
Biography
Dr. Taher’s research explores feminist object practices and activities inside American dwelling spaces. Everyday vernacular objects play a primary role in her research investigating the cultural landscapes of new immigrants with inquiries of displacement, gender, and race. As an interdisciplinary built environment researcher and designer, Mania Taher explores human-centered design principles through ethnographic studies— she visits, documents, analyzes the built environment, and hears the user’s voices to draw a holistic experience of the larger social, cultural, historical, and ecological landscape. Since joining the department in Fall 2024 as a tenure-track faculty member, Dr. Taher has been teaching in Freshman and Sophomore design studios, in addition to offering courses on human-centered design principles and product development through the lens of social design.
Mania Taher’s academic background lies at the intersection of architecture and urban design. Her upcoming book project explores the world-making of first-generation immigrant Bangladeshi women in New York, mainly by examining their dwellings and a network of locations within their residential environments. Dr. Taher analyzes her research participants’ physical and sensory ways of reconstructing spatial memories related to their everyday objects, activities, and bodily experiences of transnational displacement through spatial mapping. Dr. Taher’s broader research interest also focuses on the material and spatial histories of South Asia. In recent years, her research projects have been supported by the American Institute of Bangladesh Studies (AIBS), the Society of Architectural Historians (SAH), and the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS).
Mania Taher collaborated with BNMO Architects towards an invited micro-exhibit at the Time Space Existence exhibition, organized by the European Cultural Center (ECC) and the 2023 Venice Biennial. The exhibit highlights the transition of immigrants living in the United States and their engagement in the existing built landscape within the historic Devon Avenue neighborhood of Chicago. Taher authored several book chapters, journals, and contributed essays to various international publications and newspapers. Before arriving at the UIUC, Dr. Taher taught undergraduate and graduate architecture programs at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) and American International University- Bangladesh (AIUB).
Research Interest
Human-centered design; Social design; Diasporic landscape; Feminist place-making; Domestic place-making; Vernacular art and architecture; South Asian material culture and architectural history.
Additional Campus Affiliations
Assistant Professor, School of Architecture (0% appointment)
Assistant Professor, Center for South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies (CSAMES)
Assistant Professor, Center for the Study of Global Gender Equity (CSGGE)
Assistant Professor, Holocaust, Genocide, and Memory Studies (HGMS)
Education
Ph.D. in Architecture, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM), Milwaukee, USA.
M.S. in Architecture and Urban Design, Columbia University, New York, USA.
B.ARCH (Bachelor of Architecture), Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Research and publications
Ongoing and upcoming research
Collage image from the book project “Shifting Dwellings: Place, Culture, and Identity of Bangladeshi Immigrant Women in New York, USA, 2000-Present.”
Exhibition image from “The Mediation Slice: Exploring Immigrant Placemaking in Chicago’s Devon Avenue,” 2023 Time-Space-Existence Exhibition in Venice, Italy; organized by ECC-Italy and Venice Biennial.
Selected publications
Mapping Spatial Behaviors and Narratives of Women Experiencing the COVID-19 Pandemic: From an Architecture School in the Midwest USA. In the book COVID-19 and a World of Ad Hoc Geographies, eds. Stanley D. Brunn and Donna Gilbreath, Springer Publications. ISBN: 978-3-030-94349-3.
River as Lived Place in South Asian Urbanism: A Study of Buriganga Riverbank, Dhaka. (co-author Rahman M.). In the book, A Handbook of Waterfront Development and Urbanism, ed. Mohammed Mahbubur Rahman, Ph.D., Routledge Publications. ISBN: 9781032067513.
The Mediation Slice: Exploring Immigrant Placemaking in Chicago’s Devon Avenue. (co-author: Negin Moayer). In the exhibition catalogue Time Space Existence 2023.
Bangladeshi Immigrant Women’s Memories from Past-Lived Homes: Their Ways of Knowing Spaces. In the book, Next50: Collective Futures— Critical-creative Perspectives on the Built Environment in Bangladesh, a joint book project by ContextBD and Open Studio, University Press Limited (UPL) Bangladesh. https://www.next50bangladesh.com/
(Upcoming) Rohingya Refugees in a Segregated Geography: Case Study Milwaukee, The United States. In the book, Rohingya Refugees: Identity, Citizenship, and Human Rights, ed. Dr. Sajaudeen Chaparban, Routledge Publications.
Teaching and advising
Classes taught
ARTD 101: Introduction to Industrial Design
ARTD 201: Industrial Design I
ARTD 202: Industrial Design II
ARTD 225: Design Drawing
ARTD 328: Human-centered Product Design
ARTD 501: Industrial Design I From Inquiry to Ideation