

Marjane Satrapi and the Humanity Behind the Headlines
A friend from the BBC gave me a copy of Persepolis shortly before I began my Master's degree in Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of St Andrews. I remember being immediately captivated. As someone trained in design and architecture, the stark black-and-white illustrations drew me in, but it was the humanity of the story that stayed with me. Today, as Iran once again risks being reduced to headlines, strategic calculations and military analysis, I find myself return


Architecture as Evidence: Why the Prisons Museum Matters
By Frazer Macdonald Hay Across the world, ordinary buildings have been made to bear extraordinary violence, schools, factories, churches, hospitals repurposed as prisons, execution grounds, torture chambers. These places do not simply fade when the conflict ends; they remain as scars in the social landscape. The Prisons Museum seeks not only to document these sites, but to protect their testimony, to transform hidden trauma into public memory, to support justice, and to give


Lumbini: Where Peace Begins with Place
by Frazer Macdonald Hay Introduction I was deeply grateful to the British Council’s Cultural Protection Fund ( CPF ) and ICOMOS for the opportunity to contribute to the ICOMOS Annual General Assembly and Scientific Symposium 2025 in Lumbini, Nepal , a place whose serenity conceals a profound lesson about the relationship between peace, place, and humanity. It was a privilege to share my work on peacebuilding through place alongside heritage professionals, scholars, and p


Reviving Mosul: Heritage Recovery as Peacebuilding
Text by #FrazerMacdonaldHay In the heart of Mosul’s war-torn old city, stones speak. Cracked domes, scorched courtyards, and looted...


The Flats: Silence, Memory, and the Legacy of the Troubles
Documentary Trailer Irish cinema dates announced for acclaimed Troubles documentary The Flats: May 23rd 2025 BBC: Film puts...


The Architecture of the Everyday: Adaptive Re-use and the Value of Junk DNA
Text and Image by Frazer Macdonald Hay We rarely notice the buildings that shape our daily lives—until they’re gone. That corner shop we...


















