Dear Eleni

Many congrats on finding a new opportunity to build on the previous successful relations and I think this
is an excellent time to build on continuing NCA -BAC relationships which are of mutual interest and
benefit in terms of enhancing scholarly pursuit in areas of cultural heritage documentation and
conservation.

Faculty at the department of Architecture at NCA has diverse professional and educational interests in
various fields pertaining to architecture and mine interests lies in documentation and conservation of
architectural and cultural heritage, Sustainable building design and Low-Income Housing. Some of my
recent work experience is more towards documentation and conservation of architectural and cultural
heritage while my research including most of my publications is diverted towards Sustainable Building
Design and Low-income Housing.

I with my colleague from NCA have recently documented and renovated the Dargah Hazrat Lala
Shahbaz Qalander (13th centaury tomb of Patron saint of Province of Sindh which was a 2000 million
rupees project 2011-13. Then I and my colleagues ventured to conserve the Governor House
Peshawar, in the Province of KPK, a 1865 British period building with a budget of 400 million rupees,
2013-2015, while very recently I as Project leader from NCA have just completed the documentation and
renovation of Government House Murree, a 1954 building with a budget of 650 million rupees 2015-
2017.

We at Department of Architecture, NCA have diverse knowledge and experience of documentation,

conservation and preservation of heritage. NCA has undertaken projects of documentation of the city of
Uchchh (with its Tomb monuments which are on tentative list of UNESCO). NCA has ventured in the
efforts of conservation of Lahore Fort (World Heritage Site) and contributed in its conservation and
documentation, Our faculty has written a book and participated in conservation and documentation of
Shalimar Garden (World Heritage Site). Our faculty and students have worked on numerous heritage
sites in some or the other capacity for the betterment of Pakistan's Heritage.

Department of Architecture NCA is working on a very unique ongoing project of documentation of

Cultural Heritage which includes Urban Morphology of City of Chitral; this project is repeated every
twenty years. In its first studies in 1979 led by Prof. Ar. Javed Najam whole city of Chitral was
documented for its architectural styles, land use, building typology, and for other cultural indicators
then in 1999 this exercise was redone in leadership of Prof. Dr. Shakeel Qureshi and I and faisal sajjad
participated in it as junior faculty members while we intend to repeat this exercise in 2019 and will
compare the all three results for a well deserved publication and I hope someone will again redo this
project in 2039.

I myself have co-edited 3 books on "Architectural Heritage of Pakistan" including "Hindu Shahiya
Temples of Koh-e-Jud & Thar", "Architectural Heritage of Sultanate Period Architecture" and "Pivot of
Punjab" first two of these books includes edited papers presented in seminars on these subjects while
last book is written by Dr. Abdul Rehman on the city of Gujrat in Punjab province which is a unique
Mughal city designed inside square walls.(All books available in NCA Library) NCA Publication cell have
printed numerous books including heritage.

At present I am working to publish a travelogue of my personal experiences of "World Heritage Sites". In

the first volume an account of 100 world heritage sites are given which I have managed to document
photographically myself so far. I am also a co-editor of UK based online journal Global Built
Environment Review which deals about built environment and architectural heritage.
http://www.globalbuiltenvironmentreview.co.uk/Pages/InternationalEditorialBoard.aspx

NCA also has academic links with ISESCO which is active in conservation of Islamic Heritage sites and
ECO. We have been working with Prince Charles fund for conservation and also have worked with Getty
Grant trust and Aga Khan Program.

Coming to my interest; I am interested in documentation and conservation planning of

"World Heritage Sites of Pakistan". Its a very unfortunate situation that after being the
cradle of cultural heritage for centuries this part of the world is only able to get only six of its
sites on UNESCOs inscribed list while a total of 26 are on tentative list and is waiting to e
inscribed since decades.

According to me the basic negligence is in the documentation and knowledge propagation of

these sites. Till today no strong enough case has been put forward to authorities to consider
these locations for conservation or preservation or listing.

Lets take the example of "Rani Kot" which is the largest wall on the face of earth after the
Wall of China and it is the largest fort on the face of earth but how many people know about
this fact, let alone, people in this realm has not listened the name of this site even in Pakistan
and it is on wait list. Similar is the situation with many other sites like "Mehar Garh" despite
being older then Moenjodaro (inscribed in World Heritage list) is still on tentative list.

I presume that this all is due to gaps in knowledge and information so being academicians
and researchers we must bridge these gaps and shall try to propagate knowledge on the right
forums.

I would be interested in documentation and conservation planning of "world heritage sites of

Pakistan and publishing the results with a possibility of initiating a teaching program at the
faculty of architecture for the safeguarding of world's collective heritage.

I am just posting my jumbled ideas and a brief about my work and will try to put forward a
formal working paper at a later stage.

Best Regards