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 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
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
The Minefield Beneath Memory
Why Cultural Heritage Recovery Must Confront the Reality of Explosive Violence Translations: Arabic / Ukrainian Across modern conflicts, cultural heritage has become increasingly recognised as central to identity, recovery, and peacebuilding. Destroyed museums, damaged religious buildings, shattered neighbourhoods, erased archives, ruined cemeteries, and scarred public spaces are no longer understood simply as architectural losses. They are increasingly recognised as attacks
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
