Samta is the Founding Curatorial Director of global media house STIR and has chaired programmes at the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), the Victoria & Albert Museum, Design Museum London, Clerkenwell Design Week and Salone del Mobile. She has served as a judge for the Dezeen Awards, the Lexus Design Award (India) and the ISOLA Design Awards and is the Lead Curator for the South Asia chapter of the Architecture and Design Film Festival (ADFF:STIR).
Samta’s work spans events, exhibitions, symposiums, large-scale public festivals, editorial platforms and institutional programmes. With UHA, she’ll blend curatorial thinking with brand strategy and help imbue cultural and public programming into the studio’s engagement with the wider world.
“We’ve designed a lot of buildings for high-density populations in fast-growing economies, which can present challenges for addressing sustainability–not only for the environment but for communities as well,” said Jonas Upton-Hansen, UHA’s Founder Partner and Executive Director. “As architects and designers we have obligations to consider not only what and for whom we’re designing, but how these designs, when built, will integrate with and serve the broader communities—I’m talking about wellness and health for individuals but also for ensuring local community isn’t abandoned. And Samta’s connectivity and understanding of these sorts of fundamental cultural conversations will facilitate our ability as a studio to engage with and shape the industry and our place in it.”
UHA is celebrating its 15th year in business, with nine offices in eight countries. With multiple international competition wins, dozens of awards and a growing portfolio of significant projects across three continents, the studio has ambitions to be recognised globally for its work, and believes the addition of Samta to the team will help galvanise momentum.
For Samta, the opportunity to go in-house at the studio is a perfect confluence of passion, progress, and potential. “I’ve engaged with the team at UHA on various occasions over the past 10 years and have always admired the people and their ambition,” she said. “I’ve seen the conversations and connectivity their pavilions at the ADFF:STIR festival have enabled, and I know the respect Jonas and Ricardo (Mateu, Co-founder and Executive Director) have in the industry. From my vantage point, having had the great privilege of engaging closely with scores of architects and design studios globally, the chance to be inside one and weave it into the wider cultural fabric is exciting. It takes a certain vision to understand the value of bringing curatorial thinking into an architecture studio and I deeply appreciate that the founders have that. I can hardly wait to see what we build together.”