Toosha Atta
Programme:
Architectural History - PhD/MPhil
Start date:
January 2025
Mode of study:
Full time
Research title:
Colonisation and Architectural Preservation and Conservation
Biography
Toosha is a PhD researcher in Architectural History at the University of Edinburgh, focusing on the intersections between colonialism, architectural practices, identity and politics.
She holds a Bachelor of Science in Architecture from Anglia Ruskin University and a Master’s degree in Architecture and Urbanism from the University of East London. She also holds a diploma in Interior Design obtained abroad.
Her academic engagement includes participation in the C40 Cities competition on two occasions, where she was shortlisted in her second entry. She has also taken part in international architectural design workshops, including Refugee Shelter Design at the University of Bath and Smart Zero Energy Design of Housing Units at Fachhochschule Würzburg-Schweinfurt. These experiences have expanded her perspective on sustainable, socially engaged, and context sensitive design.
Her current research builds on her passion for architecture, history and politics, exploring how architecture can act as both a medium of power and a form of resistance.
Alongside her academic work, Toosha has tutored architecture students for three years through private teaching organisations, developing a strong interest in architectural education and critical thinking.
Research
Research
Toosha’s doctoral research investigates the relationship between colonialism and architectural conservation and preservation, examining how preservation can serve as both instruments of power and tools of resistance. Her study explores how the protection of architecture is shaped by political contexts, and how conservation decisions can redefine collective memory, identity, and spatial justice.
Through an interdisciplinary framework that combines architectural history, critical theory, and heritage studies, her work analyses the ways in which architecture becomes a medium through which authority is negotiated, contested, and reimagined. Her approach extends beyond technical conservation to question the ethical and political dimensions of preserving the past, seeking to understand how restoration can both reveal and conceal narratives within the built environment.
Driven by a broader vision of architecture as a record of human experience, Toosha’s research aims to reframe conservation as an act of awareness and accountability, one that bridges historical truth with contemporary responsibility. Her work calls for preservation practices that acknowledge the social and political layers embedded in architecture, ensuring that heritage remains a living dialogue between history, identity, and justice.