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
Growing Old in Displacement
What Ukraine's elderly remind us about home, dignity and recovery With thanks to Elena Rogers for introducing me to this important initiative and drawing my attention to one of the least discussed dimensions of displacement in Ukraine. When we think about displacement during war, our minds often turn to families fleeing bombardment, children crossing borders, or young people whose futures have been interrupted by conflict. Far less often do we think about growing old in displ
The Homes That Still Exist in Memory
Reflections on Georgia's displaced communities, cultural heritage and the meaning of home With thanks to Manana Tevzadze, whose work preserving the cultural heritage of Georgia's displaced communities inspired this article When we think about displacement, we often imagine the moment people leave. We picture families fleeing conflict, carrying what possessions they can. We think about borders crossed, temporary shelters established, and humanitarian assistance delivered. News
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
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
Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan: What Post-War Cities Must Learn About Memory
Ukrainian / Arabic Text Rebuilding After War: What Buildings Remember If you are planning the reconstruction of Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan, Syria (or any city emerging from war) there is a question that rarely appears in engineering briefs, donor frameworks, or architectural masterplans: What do the buildings remember? After conflict, the world mobilises to rebuild walls, roads, schools, and monuments. We measure recovery in square metres restored and skylines repaired. Yet in eve
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
Between Chaos and Care: Andrii Lukashenko on Security and Local Realities
Between Chaos and Care explores the lives of individuals navigating conflict zones, humanitarian crises, and high-risk environments....
