When Does a Project Become a Place?
Breaking the Ground Ceramony in Singapore 2013 Development, heritage, regeneration and peacebuilding projects are remarkably good at celebrating completion. Buildings are restored. Parks are inaugurated. Museums reopen. Community centres welcome their first visitors. Reports are submitted, donors acknowledged and photographs taken. The language of success is well rehearsed because, in many respects, it is measurable. Budgets are balanced, milestones achieved and contractual o
Thank You, Urban Realm
I am delighted to thank Urban Realm for publishing my article, Rebuilding Without Erasing, which they boldly retitled Ghost Buildings. It is a real honour to feature in one of Scotland's leading publications covering architecture, design and the built environment. The article explores a question that architecture rarely asks: what should we do with buildings that have been used for violence? We are familiar with rebuilding homes, restoring infrastructure and repairing heritag
Teaching the Next Custodians
Antwerp Workshop Most of us think of buildings as things we own, rent, manage, occupy, or occasionally repair. Rarely do we think of ourselves as their custodians. Yet every building we inherit has already passed through countless hands. Builders, occupants, owners, caretakers, neighbours, designers, and communities have all left traces behind. We arrive in the middle of a story, not at its beginning. The challenge facing future generations is not simply how to build new thin
The Spaces Between
Most people rarely think about thresholds. We notice rooms. We notice buildings. We notice destinations. But some of the most important experiences in our lives happen in the spaces between them. The doorway we pause beneath during the rain. The corridor where an unexpected conversation begins. The stair where we catch a glimpse of another part of a building and become curious. The entrance to a school, a workplace, a theatre, a hospital, a church, a home. These moments are s
People • Place • Memory • Change
Over the years, my work has taken me into a remarkably diverse range of environments. I have worked with architects, heritage practitioners, educators, community leaders, peacebuilders, public servants, artists, emergency responders, researchers and business leaders. I have spent time in universities, government institutions, cultural organisations, post-conflict cities, coastal villages, boardrooms, construction sites and communities navigating profound social change. At fir
Returning Is Not the Same as Going Home
Reflections on the World Cities Report 2026, displacement, and the phenomenology of home The recently published World Cities Report 2026: The Global Housing Crisis, Pathways to Action offers a stark assessment of the state of global housing. According to UN-Habitat, as many as 3.4 billion people worldwide now live without secure, safe, or adequate housing. The report describes a world shaped by spiralling housing costs, displacement, informal urbanisation, climate vulnerabili
Rebuilding Without Erasing: Why Adaptive Re-use Matters After War
If you are working on the reconstruction of Ukraine, Gaza, Syria, Sudan, or any city emerging from conflict, there is a familiar set of questions: How quickly can we rebuild? What should be prioritised? Which structures are beyond repair? These are necessary questions. But there is another question that rarely appears in planning frameworks or design briefs: What should we do with buildings that remember violence? The buildings that don’t fit Post-conflict reconstruction tend
Whose Heritage Is It, Anyway?
( French / Arabic ) When we talk about heritage, whose heritage are we really talking about? It’s a question that has stayed with me over the years of working in this field. Not as an abstract provocation, but as something that emerges repeatedly in practice, in projects, in conversations, and in the spaces between intention and reality. Heritage is often presented as an unquestionable good: something to be protected, celebrated, and passed on. And in many ways, it is. But
Archaeology of the Future: Finding Hope in Architecture
(Arabic Translation) This week, I watched something that left me unexpectedly hopeful. A profile of Lina Ghotmeh on the Arts in Motion , and I found myself, at times, genuinely giddy. Not because of spectacle. But because of recognition. Architecture as Orchestra In a recent piece I wrote, ( Recombination: The Missing Discipline in Architecture ) , I argued that architecture must move away from authorship and toward orchestration. Listening to Lina Ghotmeh speak, I heard tha
Buildings, Memory, and Mediation
Exploring peacebuilding as a lens for adaptive reuse I have been thinking about the relationship between peacebuilding and adaptive reuse. At first, the connection may not seem obvious. One operates in the aftermath of conflict, working with fractured societies, contested narratives, and fragile relationships. The other is often understood as a technical or architectural process, adapting existing buildings for new use. But the more I work across both, the less separate they
