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How might this destruction be stopped? International law remains one of the only paths to seek accountability. And it is not only lawyers who make its systems function. Through their stewardship of the built environment (including long-standing engagement with the right to housing and the politics of climate change), architects, planners, and preservationists can shed light on the techniques, procedures, and consequences of modern urban warfare. They also have the potential to change them. — The Architectural League of New York
Berlin-based Palestinian urbanist and scholar Natasha Aruri, formerly of the TU Berlin, breaks down the concept of ‘domicide’ with MIT's Balakrishnan Rajagopal and SITU founding partner Brad Samuels. The term can be traced to the 2001 title Domicide: The Global Destruction of Home, but has... View full entry
A new report on the socio-economic situation in Gaza from the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) has established a baseline for rebuilding as a cease-fire deal that would end the seven-month Israel-Hamas war continues to be up in the air. The findings lay out the most realistic timeline for... View full entry
The UK-based group Architects for Gaza, appealing to the educational needs of displaced Palestinian architecture students in the occupied territory, has just announced the creation of a new learning platform called Gaza Global University. The announcement was made earlier this month via... View full entry
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... View full entry
The Spanish NGO Heritage for Peace has published a report on the impact of recent Israeli airstrikes on Gaza’s cultural heritage. The report, released on November 7th, claims that over 100 cultural heritage landmarks have been damaged or destroyed as of publishing. Reports of subsequent damage... View full entry
[...] Michael advocated for collective, neighbourly, and walkable cities, while also practising architecture and urban design in ways that embraced these same principles. Even so, his shrewd wit always recognized the fallacy that architecture can change society by itself. “Architecture is never non-political,” he told Aleksandra Wagner in a 2006 interview “it always reinforces a set of social relations, whether within the family or between the ruler and the ruled”. — Failed Architecture
Architect and educator Fadi Shayya pens a heartfelt, personal tribute to the late Michael Sorkin, pointing out his involvement in Palestine and initiatives like the Open Gaza project. "So many others were closer to Michael," Shayya writes in Failed Architecture. "So many others are more qualified... View full entry
Ultimately, the UN and international aid agencies continue to call for a lifting of the blockade. They say this is the only way to bring in all the materials needed to repair homes and infrastructure and revive the local economy. — BBC News
Yolande Knell shares some information explaining why in the year since the 50-day conflict with Israel, not a single destroyed home has been rebuilt. View full entry
The politicians know what they’re doing: Gaza is a liability, not a vote-winner. It’s much easier to keep the Strip under closure and blame Hamas, who certainly shoulder a large portion of the blame. As do the Egyptian, the Palestinian Authority and the international community. — Haaretz
A Year Since GazaOne year after Operation Protective Edge, Haaretz sends its top writers to examine what has changed since the 50-day conflict between Israel and Hamas, and to ask whether – or when – the next war will erupt.It's been one year since Israel launched Operation Protective Edge in... View full entry
My name is Abdallah AlQassab, nearly 50% of us are unemployed and we are very available to show you around — Theguardian
In response to graffiti artist Banksy's Make this the Year YOU Discover a New Destination Gaza tourist video, the territory's parkour team show us what real life is like there and their dreams beyond the border. To the sounds of Palestine's biggest female hip-hop artist, Shadia Mansour, join... View full entry
I’m extremely concerned that if you leave Gaza in the state it’s currently in, you’ll have another eruption, and violence, and then we’re back in a further catastrophe, so we’ve got to stop that,-Tony Blair — +972
Even a hawk like Tony is worried."The scope of destruction in Gaza remains enormous. According to the UN, over 96,000 homes were either damaged or destroyed by Israeli air strikes. The donor states that have pledged to transfer money have yet to do so, re-building is going nowhere, many are... View full entry
They would never discuss issues of repression or land grab directly. There is a certain pact of silence around the political dimension of architecture there. Schools of architecture depoliticise the profession, they put it very much within the domain of aesthetic experimentation — MIDDLE EAST MONITOR
Eyal Weizman - architect, writer, activist and professor of visual cultures at Goldsmiths, University of London - is explaining how architecture and power are inextricably linked, even within structures that appear largely to serve an aesthetic purpose. Buildings or cityscapes that a tourist... View full entry
Sean Smith published the first in a series of articles in which "three architects (two designers and one licensed architect) discuss their transition from student to professional, their changed perceptions of the career and the challenges and joys of their current work". The interview with... View full entry
Weizman has also made a name for himself as the chief proponent of “forensic architecture”, by which he analyses the impacts of urban warfare for clues about the crimes that were perpetrated there. To Weizman, buildings are weapons. When he looks out across the landscape of the occupied Palestinian West Bank [...] he sees a battlefield. “The weapons and ammunitions are very simple elements: they are trees, they are terraces, they are houses. They are barriers.” — theguardian.com
it is clear that the scale of damage is unprecedented, with approximately 13 percent of the housing stock affected, five percent of the housing stock is uninhabitable – an estimated 18,000 housing units have been either destroyed or severely damaged.
This on top of a shortage of 71,000 housing units before the Israeli attack.
— THE ELECTRONIC INTIFADA
This is a real challenge for architecture. I urge Architecture for Humanity to directly involve and bring this crisis into their working platform, producing ideas of reconstruction. View full entry
The Palestinian Authority government has estimated that it could cost $6 billion to rebuild the territory: 50,000 homes have been totally or partially destroyed, roughly 250 factories have reportedly been rendered inoperable, and Gaza's sewage treatment facility and power plant have been damaged, shrinking the available supply of drinkable water and creating a potential health crisis for residents. — Foreign Policy
The recent (and ongoing) Israeli invasion of the Gaza strip has taken a massive toll on the densely-populated urban area's infrastructure. While the need to begin reconstruction is urgent and unquestionable, the mechanics are much trickier. In order to get cement into Gaza, Palestinians must... View full entry
