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
A Building Speaks Before Demolition
In conversation with a building scheduled for demolition ..... The manuscript I have recently completed, Adaptive Reuse: Conflict, Climate and Conservation / What Buildings Know , is structured as a conversation. Each chapter opens with the voice of a building facing demolition. It reflects on its condition, its memories, and its uncertainty about what comes next. These openings are not decorative. They frame the themes that follow, adaptive reuse, conflict, climate, conserva
What Buildings Know & Why It Matters Now
I have recently completed a manuscript exploring adaptive reuse, not simply as an architectural method, but as a way of thinking about how we live, remember, and change. At its core, the book asks a simple question: What happens if we stop treating buildings as objects to be replaced, and start understanding them as things to be read? Over time, that question became something else entirely. It became clear that adaptive reuse is not only about buildings. It is about how we re
Why Peacebuilding Needs Climate Thinking and Climate Action Needs Memory, Place, and Justice
By Frazer Macdonald Hay Across the UN and global policy landscape, the term “climate–conflict nexus” has become shorthand for the reality that environmental shocks and social instability are increasingly inseparable. But the nexus is often described in economic or technological terms, food security, water scarcity, critical infrastructure, adaptation finance, and “smart” responses. Yet missing from most of these discussions is something fundamentally human: How people inhabi
Why Peace & Conflict Skills Matter in Everyday UK Life
For most of my working life, I have operated at the intersection of people, place, memory, and conflict . I have worked in cities rebuilding after war; in neighbourhoods negotiating tense identities; in institutions grappling with histories they found difficult to acknowledge; and in communities looking for ways to reconnect after years of silence or division. Through all of this, one insight has stayed with me: Conflict does not begin with violence, and peace does not begin
What the Walled Off Hotel Reveals About Our Liquid Times
Banksy, Bauman, Sontag and the Architecture of Fear by Frazer Macdonald Hay In Liquid Times: Living in an Age of Uncertainty, Zygmunt Bauman describes a world slipping from solid certainties into fluid insecurities, a world where social bonds thin, trust evaporates, and fear becomes a political resource more valuable than truth. We inhabit, he argues, an age shaped by negative globalisation: a system that grants radical freedom of movement to some while confining others beh
Revolution Is Contagious: The Cautionary Tale of Nepal’s Gen Z Uprising
Written by Frazer Macdonald Hay Image by Frazer Macdonald Hay Kathmandu 2025 It wasn’t meant to be a revolution. When young Nepalis poured into the streets of Kathmandu in September 2025, they were angry, but they were also hopeful. The government’s abrupt ban on social media had sparked outrage, yet beneath that decision lay years of frustration: corruption, inequality, and the spectacle of political elites living in abundance while most of the population slid deeper into di
