ABOUT US
We, Dr Rod Hackney, PPRIBA, PPUIA, community architect and Dr Tia Kansara, economist and business woman have combined our professions to deliver schemes that are affordable and well-designed. We care about architecture that heals.
WE ARE
ECO-CONSCIOUS
EBULLIENT
COMMUNITY- CENTRIC
Housing crisis: The man who led an entire street to take back control
Dr. Rod Hackney
Co- founder
Kansara Hackney Ltd (KH) aims to alleviate poverty through community architecture, which began when one of the two directors, Dr Rod Hackney, realised that the root of the sustainability debate lay in tapping neglected human potential. To satisfy the UN-Habitat alleviation of slum conditions, KH involves local slum dwellers with professional enablers, who live and work within the shantytowns, through a self-help programme of renovation and social improvement.
Rod Hackney's Inner City objective is a simple one. Only by living in slums can professionals and communities efficiently work together to overcome crowded, dirty, and run-down environments. His successful results alleviated poverty, halted social decay, degradation and riots, whilst creating sustainable jobs, recycling waste, reducing harmful emissions and producing green environments. His slum upgrading skills were acknowledged by the Paris based Union Internationale des Architectes (UIA). The UIA Sir Robert Mathew Prize citation stated that Rod Hackney's "work represents an extremely innovative approach to community architecture. Here, as a member of the community, the architect assumes the role of organizer and teacher, helping people to improve their own living environment. The technology transfer is part of a process in community design and reconstruction".
Dr. Tia Kansara
Co- founder
Tia is an award-winning entrepreneur. She is the founder and director of Kansara Hackney Ltd. (KH), a partnership with Dr Rod Hackney (Past President: Royal Institute of British Architects and Union of International Architects). KH are the first sustainable lifestyle consultancy in the UK, leading specialists in sustainable design and implementation for the future generation of private and commercial clients.
As its youngest consultant, Tia was invited to advise the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, BioTrade Initiative on sustainability. A post she held between 2009 – 2012. She has also advised the UN-Habitat in Hue, Vietnam with the Building and Social Housing Foundation. In 2010, she wrote the brief and appointed the architects Foster + Partners for Saudi American Bank‘s multi-million dollar headquarters as the first female to judge a LEED platinum building in Riyadh.
In 2011, she was invited to advise the Lebanese Parliament on the revival of Tripoli’s International Fair. Her firm, Kansara Hackney Ltd was personally appointed by late Arch. Oscar Niemeyer, to complete the project. In association with the Club of Rome and the United Nations General Assembly she has advised the Royal family of Bhutan and Past Prime Minister Jigme Thinley and current Prime Minister Tsering Tobgay on the creation of an international commission on sustainable, economic growth. She is the Global Ambassador for Sandbox, a community of 900+ leading change-makers below 30.