Over 60% of the buildings in Gaza have been destroyed. But it's also the heritage, the culture, the collective memory. So it's important for us to rethink how to rebuild, how to accommodate one of the highest densely populated spots on Earth. Do we go vertical? Do we go horizontal? You've got an urban fabric. You've got a coastal fabric. You've got a rural fabric. Each one requires a different way of looking at it. — NPR
Yara Sharif is the London-based co-founder of the group Architects for Gaza. The Palestinian architect tells NPR the task now is to assemble a society literally of the rubble using the remnants of some 200,000 buildings that have been destroyed and in the most environmentally sensitive ways possible. A top-down solution that keeps Palestinians out of any post-war rebuilding process has been a growing concern for activists, who brought the issue to the International Court of Justice as part of South Africa's attempt to use it to stop the violence in December.
To date, the IDF’s military strategy has razed more than 70% of all residential structures, plus another 20 or so hospitals and approximately 350 schools. Its plan to establish a 23-square-mile "buffer zone" within the Gaza Strip's borders has become another recent point of contention (h/t LA Times).
3 Comments
A most impressive initiative. Presumbably it will be nothing like the grotesquery of NEOM, Dubai, the global high-rise and supertall monstrosities and streetways and highways and tunnels and mansions. Above all without involvement of those who have initiated and aided the genocide and destruction. Major task is how to prevent recurrence and much worse.
Ivy League people always know when is the right time to initiate their brand and solve the world's problems. (See, Neri Oxman)
To advocate for the rebuilding of Gaza by the indigenous people is the only way. Considering the vast, highly educated diaspora of Palestinians and Gazans with local knowledge this is highly feasible. What is then needed is reparations from all the nations that perpetrated this domicide.
Alyssa Leal Moffitt
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