Advisory Board

Baharash Bagherian is the CEO of URB and has masterminded designs of various sustainable cities including The Sustainable City Yiti Oman, The Sustainable City Yas Island Abu Dhabi, The Sustainable City Amman and many more yet to be revealed. Having gained and harnessed invaluable knowledge leading the designs of such projects, URB was founded with a sense of purpose to accelerate the world’s transition towards sustainable developments.

As highly experienced international consultants providing development, master planning, landscape & architectural services, URB are developing the highest standards of sustainable cities through their unique expertise & sustainability know-how.

Steven Velegrinis is a Director of Urbanism+Planning and Head of Ecology and Landscape at AECOM Middle East and Africa.   His work has focussed on the multi-disciplinary intersections between urban planning and landscape architecture and he has led design teams since 2003.  Over the past 26 years he has practiced in Australia, Southeast Asia and the Gulf.  His recent work has included urban design projects such as the Expo 2020 Masterplan, District 2020 Legacy Masterplan, NEOM Regional Land Use Masterplan, Dubai Design District Masterplan, Bogacay Creek Masterplan in Antalya, The Mount Masterplan in Muscat, Le Marais Masterplan in Rabat, Morocco and the Hatta Tourism Masterplan.

Steven has also led the site design and landscape architecture of a series of public realm and hospitality projects including Expo 2020 Public Realm, the Chedi, Ras Al Hadd, La Ville Hotel and City Walk Residential in Dubai, Kempinski The Wave Muscat and Hakkasan Restaurant in Emirates Towers Dubai. He remains involved in the development of the profession through his speaking engagements and research initiatives which have included speaking at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, Architecture Association School of Architecture, the Bartlett School of Architecture at UCL, Cambridge University and Universite Paris Sorbonne.

Maher is an Architect, Urban Designer and Planner with 18 years of professional consultancy experience, leading multiple high-profile developments in Canada and the Middle East. Before joining Jacobs, Maher has worked for Parsons and Atkins in Dubai and for Bousfields Inc. in Toronto.

Maher’s work has focused on strategic planning initiatives and large-scale complex masterplans, from visioning and concept stages to detailed design and delivery. This includes mixed-use transit-oriented developments, commercial districts, exclusive-residential villa communities, waterfront and beach destinations and industrial free zones and ports. The scale and type of projects may vary yet they share the same intent of integrating good land use planning and  progressive design thinking.

Kourosh Salehi is the Design Director for LWK + PARTNERS. He is a British Architect, Urbanist and educator with over 25 years international experience.

He has designed and successfully delivered a range of award winning multidisciplinary signature projects in the UK, Asia and the Middle East. Kourosh has established a comprehensive portfolio of constructed and award winning projects in London, Beijing, Hong Kong, Doha and Dubai amongst others, covering a wide spectrum of projects.

As a Design Director, he has designed a diverse range of projects from concept to detail design including mixed-use of various scales, hospitality, high end luxury and low cost residential projects.

As an urban designer, he has lead the design process for urban skyline, large scale master planning like “Qetaifan Island” in Doha and was the team leader for compiling the Architectural Design Guidelines for the Emirates of Sharjah.

Rayya’s drive for the shaping of a better future within the places we live and work has defined the impacts of her contributions to projects and the resulting built environment. Her work in the region for the past 12 years has touched on different scales , bus stops, to buildings, to masterplans and cities, giving her the experience and understanding of how each component of a city system works.

Across these projects, Rayya has covered a vast array of topics, from wellbeing, net zero energy, carbon and water, circular economy, outdoor comfort and ecology.

In the past couple of years Rayya has seen her approach to sustainable design become reality in their constructed forms, delivering real working solutions in the sustainability realm which are so often lost in the realities of building design and construction –all testament to the robustness of her design contributions and belief in their ability to deliver tangible results for the project and their Clients.

Examples of such projects are Masdar Eco Villa (Net Zero Energy Villa) , Museum of the Future, Expo Sustainability Pavilion, Hudayriat Island, Mina Zayed Creative District and award winning masterplan project Masdar Phase 2 DMP.

Each of these projects have played a role shaping the way generations integrate and interact with their environments.

With enthusiasm for her material, twinned with an informed knowledge and evoking thought processes, Rayya has led a number of stakeholder engagement workshops and sessions with key governmental entities such as the Department of Municipality and Au Dhabi Sewerage Services Company, Department of Energy etc..

Rayya completed a degree in Civil and Environmental engineering and an MSc in Energy & Environmental technology, providing the foundation of her knowledge on energy, water and waste
systems. Rayya completed Circular Economy and Sustainability Strategies courses in University of Cambridge.

Rayya aspires to focusing on the interlinks between these three key sectors and believes in the system approach, which she hopes will allow her to provide a greater level of holistic advice and solution forming to clients.

Rayya is a founding member of the Jordan Green Building Council and a technical advisor the World Green Building Council (on Health & Wellbeing and Sustainable reconstruction frameworks). She lectures at Heriot- Watt University in Dubai and frequently speaks at conferences.