Example Project 03 — Critical Encounters

Information

Mahwish Khalil is the founder of Critical Encounters, and an Assistant Professor at Syracuse University School of Architecture. Her work focuses on environmental change, with particular attention on water systems and their representation. Through design, writing, film, and exhibition-making, she examines how site-specific transformations are negotiated through architecture, politics of development and cultural production.

Her work has been exhibited at Venice Architecture Biennale (2025) and CityGroup (2025). Her writing has been published in Room One Thousand, South Asian Urban Climates, Silt Magazine, Urban Assemblage, and POOL. Her short films, Ravi: Tales from a River (2023) and In the Fold of Shadows (2025) have been screened internationally.

Khalil holds a Master of Science in Architecture Studies from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Bachelor of Architecture with Distinction from Beaconhouse National University.

Email , Instagram ↗

Projects

Cloud Gardens (Last Resorts Collaboration)
Palancia Valley, Spain
2026 - Ongoing

Anchor Points
Competition Proposal
2025

Collective Hotspots
Andalusia, Spain
2024 - Ongoing

Tracing Water
Pucon and Atacama Region, Chile
2023-2024

Kinara-e-Ravi
Lahore, Pakistan
2023 - Ongoing

Writing

Tidal Clocks
Room One Thousand Issue 14: Intertidal
2026

Staging Encounters: Chronicles of Displacement
South Asian Urban Climates
Forthcoming. 2026

Redrawing Constructed Landscapes
Silt Magazine Issue 02: Intertwined
2025

Spiraling Remnants
POOL Issue 09: Loop
2023

Exhibitions

In the Folds of Shadows
19th International Venice Architecture Biennale 2025
Arsenale
Venice, Italy

Short Films

Ravi: Tales from a River (2024)
Screened at the Middle East Now Festival, Milan, Italy
Screened at the IIUSFF Film Festival, Dhaka, Bangladesh

In the Fold of Shadows (2025)
Screened at the 19th International Venice Architecture Biennale

Press

El Confidencial (2026)
Árboles inyectados con trufa

Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3) (2026)
‘Last Resorts’, un caso de estudio facilitado por BC3, presentado en el Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza

Cornell AAP (2025)
Venice Biennale

Archpaper (2025)
Venice Biennale

Last Updated 2026

critical encounters

is a research-based architectural practice that investigates environmental infrastructure, climate, and governance through spatial inquiry.

2025

Transcending regional borders and landscapes, unprecedented heat levels engulf city centres each year. In a time where locals are often warned to stay indoors and withdraw from public spaces in fear of heat exposure, this installation highlights distinct instances where local communities foster collective intelligence as forms of resistance.

19th International Venice Architecture Biennale

The short film traces how everyday urban infrastructures evolve into cultural artifacts at the intersections of climate and architecture within the context of southern Spain. Collective intelligence is unveiled through ways of collaboration between locals and the city as they reimagine their urban fabric.

Andalusia, Spain

In collaboration with Laura-India Garinois. With funding support from MIT Spain.

Short Film [2025]
09:43:00

Lorem Ipsum...

Directed By: Mahwish Khalil and Laura-India Garinois

Photographs: (3) Excerpt from Biennale Catalogue. 2025.
(3.1) Photograph by Saule Barley. 2025.
(3.2) Photograph by Saule Barley. 2025.
(3.3) Photograph by Saule Barley. 2025.

3.1

3.2

3.3

[...] The shadows of ancient tree canopies are integrated and readapted into contemporary infrastructures of shade, while the movement of water is materialized into urban cooling mechanisms. From fabric canopies sheltering streets to prosthetic architectural adaptations such as fountains, awnings, window blinds, misting devices, and green trellises on façades, these initiatives define a spectrum of resourceful, transformations.

See more: https://www.labiennale.org/en/architecture/2025/natural/fold-shadows-prosthetic-dialogues

Top