Aziza Chaouni is an Associate Professor of Architecture at the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto, where she also serves as the Director of the Designing Ecological Tourism research platform. She is the founding principal of Aziza Chaouni Projects (ACP), a design-build practice with offices in Fez, Morocco, and Toronto, Canada. Her work lies at the intersection of architecture, landscape, and infrastructure, with a deep commitment to sustainability, social inclusion, and culturally rooted innovation. Trained as both an architect and civil engineer, Chaouni holds a Master of Architecture with distinction from the Harvard Graduate School of Design and a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering with Honors from Columbia University. Her multidisciplinary background informs a unique approach to design, one that bridges technical rigor and environmental sensitivity with social responsibility. Chaouni’s research, teaching, and professional practice center on sustainable design and construction in the Global South, with a particular emphasis on arid climates, vernacular techniques, and resource-conscious innovations. Her work explores the integration of landscape and architecture through regenerative approaches to water management, bio-based materials, and collaborative co-design processes. She is especially invested in working with underserved communities and sites of contested heritage, where she seeks to activate architecture as a catalyst for socio-ecological resilience. She is the author and editor of several influential publications, including Desert Tourism: Tracing the Fragile Edges of Development (with Virginie Lefebvre), Out of Water: Design Solutions for Arid Regions (with Liat Margolis), and Ecotourism, Nature Conservation and Development: Reimagining Jordan’s Shobak Arid Region. In 2007, she co-founded the Moroccan chapter of Docomomo with the late Mohammed El Hariri, helping to expand awareness and protection of modernist heritage across North Africa. Chaouni has led the rehabilitation of landmark heritage sites, most notably the Qarawiyyine Library in Fez, considered the world’s oldest continually operating library. Her work on the Sidi Harazem Thermal Bath Complex, a modernist masterpiece by Jean-François Zevaco, and the CICES Fairgrounds in Dakar, Senegal (with Mourtada Gueye), has been supported by the Getty Foundation’s Keeping it Modern initiative. Her recent conservation leadership includes post-earthquake diagnostics and rehabilitation of royal palaces in Marrakech, and the revitalization of the Jewish Mellah of Debdou in eastern Morocco. Her design work has garnered numerous awards, including top honors from the Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction (both Global and Regional Africa and Middle East prizes), the Architectural League of New York’s Young Architects Award, the EDRA Great Places Award, the American Society of Landscape Architects Design Awards, and the ACSA Collaborative Practice Award. Her projects have been featured in major exhibitions and venues such as the Venice Architecture Biennale, the International Architecture Biennale in Rotterdam, INDEX: Design to Improve Life in Copenhagen, the UN-Habitat World Urban Forum, and the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Copenhagen. Through her pedagogy, research platforms, and built work, Chaouni is committed to redefining architectural practice as a socially engaged, ecologically attuned, and historically grounded discipline—especially within contexts that are often overlooked or undervalued in global architectural discourse