Let the Third Place Die
A Coffee Break Read.....Let the Third Place Die The panda of public life, and our endless attempts to save a society from itself. I have spent much of my working life looking for good people doing worthwhile things in interesting places. From the military and fire service to academia, architecture and international humanitarian organisations, I have been drawn towards institutions promising service, knowledge, cooperation and peace. Yet each, in its own particular way, has ma
Why Peace Needs Places to Disagree
Conflict is not the opposite of peace. Violence is. Image from ECA Student Graduate Show By Frazer Macdonald Hay One of the most curious developments in modern society is the way we have come to speak about conflict. Listen to politicians, organisational leaders or the media and conflict is almost always described as something to be avoided. We talk about conflict prevention, conflict management and conflict resolution as though conflict itself represents a failure of society
Heritage Futures: Designing Places for Lives We Cannot Yet Imagine
Image and text by Frazer Macdonald Hay Every generation inherits a world it did not make. We occupy buildings we did not design, walk streets laid out by strangers, and worship, learn, argue and celebrate in places imagined by people long since gone. Heritage has traditionally asked how we should care for these inheritances. Heritage Futures asks something more demanding: what are we leaving behind for those who will one day inherit us? I have found myself returning to this q
The Urban Room: Rethinking Adaptive Reuse After Demolition
Image by Frazer Macdonald Hay There is an uncomfortable question that architects rarely ask. What happens when the building we hoped to conserve has already disappeared? Adaptive reuse has become one of the defining architectural ideas of our age. Around the world, former factories become museums, warehouses become homes, churches become theatres, and industrial landscapes become parks. These projects are celebrated because they offer an alternative to demolition. They remi
The Architecture of Trust: The Missing Discipline in National Security
Britain has rediscovered the language of defence. Hardly a day passes without discussion of military spending, cyber security, artificial intelligence, critical infrastructure or the growing instability of the international order. Russia's invasion of Ukraine has fundamentally changed how European governments think about security, and rightly so. States have an obligation to protect their citizens from external threats, and few would now argue against the need for credible ar
The Era of Peacebuilding Has Not Ended. It Has Moved Home
Why the built environment matters in an age of deterrence For much of the past three decades, Western governments believed that peace could be built. The language of international policy reflected that confidence. Democracy promotion, humanitarian assistance, institution building and post-conflict reconstruction became the dominant vocabulary of security. Architects, planners, conservationists and humanitarian organisations found themselves contributing to that ambition by re
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
