About
Urban STEPS and Zahra Breshna
Urban STEPS is an applied research, learning, and strategic framework for understanding and engaging complex urban systems. It works where conventional planning reaches its limits.
The framework emerged from more than two decades of professional practice, research, and institutional leadership by Zahra Breshna. The following profile provides the context from which Urban STEPS evolved.
Dr.-Ing. Zahra Breshna
Architect | Urban Planner | Researcher
Dr.-Ing. Zahra Breshna is an architect, urban planner, and researcher with more than two decades of international experience in architecture, urban development, governance, and cultural heritage. Her work spans scales from individual buildings to metropolitan planning and combines academic research with institutional leadership and practical implementation.
Working across Europe and Afghanistan, she has contributed to post-conflict reconstruction, urban governance, heritage safeguarding, and strategic planning in rapidly changing environments.
Drawing on these experiences, she founded URBAN STEPS as an applied research and learning framework, to investigate how planning can better engage with the social, cultural, institutional, and spatial dynamics shaping complex urban systems.
Her work is characterized by the integration of research, institutional practice, and field experience, in order to address the complexities of rapidly evolving urban systems.
Selected Professional Milestones
Founded an interdisciplinary platform for urban research, training, and strategic practice. Developed the URBAN STEPS methodological framework to strengthen context-sensitive planning and decision-making in complex urban environments.
Leads a nonprofit initiative dedicated to preserving, promoting, and advancing Afghanistan’s twentieth-century artistic, architectural, and cultural heritage.
Established an independent planning and architecture consultancy working across sectors and cultural contexts, providing strategic advice, urban planning, and architectural services.
Led strategic planning activities for a metropolitan expansion designed for more than three million inhabitants, coordinating planning processes across multiple governmental institutions in a post-conflict context.
Established and led Afghanistan’s first national program for safeguarding urban heritage (DSAUH), developing regulatory guidelines, conducting field-based surveys, and initiating professional training and capacity-building activities.
Directed architectural projects, participated successfully in design competitions, and managed complex planning and implementation processes in interdisciplinary collaborations.
Academic Background
PhD (Dr.-Ing.) in Urban and Regional Planning
Technical University of Karlsruhe (now KIT), 2004
Dissertation: Das historische Zentrum von Kabul – Grundlagen für eine Strategie der Wiederbelebung (The Historic Centre of Kabul – Foundations for a Revitalization Strategy), published in 2007 (ISBN 978-386644-104-0).
Diploma in Architecture (Dipl.-Ing.)
Technical University of Karlsruhe (now KIT), 1995
Diploma thesis: Reorganization of Industrial Wasteland – Linz, Austria, published in Die Herausforderung (The Challenge), 1995.
Contributions
- Author of publications on urban development, heritage, and resilience.
- Speaker at international conferences, workshops, and expert forums.
- Advisor and evaluator for governmental, academic, and cultural institutions.
- Recipient of architectural competition awards and recognition for professional design work.