8th International Conference on Building Resilience – ICBR Lisbon’2018

Risk and Resilience in Practice: Vulnerabilities, Displaced People, Local Communities and Heritages
14-16 November 2018 – Lisbon, Portugal

Upcoming temporary and memorial city

Abstract

Since World War II, the war has as battlefields the cities, which, in the most recent cases, are the principal
stages of the conflict. With all the violence and bombing involved, the societies are being affected and the
humanitarian crises of migration have been increasing. Nowadays, we can assist how war is being one of the
biggest atrocities against human life and a crime against the contemporary cities. The violence and massive exodus
have a huge psychological impact in all the inhabitants that are forced to leave or fight. However, after or even
during the conflicts they want to come back to their country and their homes. It is fundamental to think about the
future of the cities and in those who want to come back as soon as it is possible. In this context, this paper focuses
on a proposal of a temporary town for Syria after war. This proposal was developed in the scope of the International
Ideas Competition “Syria Post-war Housing” and the aim is to create a place for housing people while the cities
are being rebuild, to receive the displaced people that want to come back and help to build their country.

Keywords: Post-disaster reconstruction; Housing; Temporary city; Future city; Memorial.

1. Introduction

Cities have become the battlefields of the wars and its inhabitants are part of their fighters. With the invention
of long-range air bombs in the 20 th century, cities became targets for military attacks, a format that uses the
population and its living space as strategic objects within the conflict (Charlesworth, 2006). This transmutation of
battle space affects the entire urban contexts and consequently its societies (Maurer, 2017; Charlesworth, 2006).
The destruction of urban spaces and urban life seems to be growing and the aim on war seems to be centred both
on the destruction of buildings and structures and on cultures.
Recently, there are about 50 million people affected by their cities becoming confrontational areas, such as
Aleppo in Syria, or Donestsk in Ukraine, among others. This situation forces the deprivation of the future
generation’s education, the psychological trauma of the society and the migration, forcing a prolonged
displacement of their country (Maurer, 2017). Communities affected by the war's deepest desires yearn to re-live
their cities in peace. But rebuilding them is a process of extreme complexity for that very reason. In this respect,
some questions should be raised, like “how to rebuild the cities for these societies?”. Or “how should the architects
work to reconstruct around peace and healing the wounds of the communities?”. But the main question is “Who
can or Who should do such task?”
Urban planners and architects have an important role to play in this matter. Peace-building and healing of
society's injuries is not just a political responsibility. According to Barakat (1998, p. 12) the "reconstruction as
healing" is primordial to create a stable and better future and there are three primary concepts that must be
considered by architects and urban planners: hope, healing and reconciliation. Thus, as Woods (1993, p. 19) points
out, it can be assumed that the wreckage arising from war may be the beginning of "new ways of thinking, living,
and shaping space, arising from individuality and invention", and from this beginning, a new community can be
formed, a society that prevents the basis of the organization of violence and war.
In this context, this paper has as main objective to discuss the role of the architects in the reconstructions’
processes and to reflect about the different ways of cities’ regenerations through a proposal developed in the scope
of the International Ideas Competition “Syria: Post-war Housing”. The proposal focuses on a temporary town for
Syria after war and turned out to be a criticism to the Competition.
In terms of Methodology and for the advancement of this proposal, a preliminary study on local
architecture, both traditional and contemporary, was carried out through authors such as Chibli (2004), and on
Arab architecture and new types of housing through video conferences as Jean Nouvel on Arabic Architecture,
Context and Culture (2014) and How to reinvent the apartment building of Moshe Safdie (2014). And, for an
 8th International Conference on Building Resilience – ICBR Lisbon’2018

improved understanding of the current mass migration of Syrian refugees, some research was made through
consultation of references such UNHCR (2016) and by documentary films as Return to Homs (2013), Children on
the frontline (2014) e Salam Neighbor (2015).
In addition to this research, this project required more in-depth contact with the Syrian question for a more
exclusive approach. Various institutions for the reception and insertion of refugee families in Portugal were
contacted, such as PAR Famílias, through Refugiados magazine (Marques, 2016), and interviews with Syrian
students, some of them refugees, who were in Portugal were conducted.
The applied project methodology did not anticipate any field work since it was unfeasible to visit the country.
Moreover, admittedly, it did not focus on any specific city of the country. The project intended the hypothetical
representation of a temporary city in any city and to any extent. In a country that still faces a war and a struggle
for stability, the projected idea was to create a relationship between architecture and imagination, devising a
temporary housing space to welcome the first to come to rebuild their city, where they would settle to its rearmost.
After stabilizing the city and with a built urban organization, the projected "temporary city" acquired new functions
necessary for the fullness of the reconstructed city.
Conceptual and imaginary thinking was generated, centered in criticizing the competition itself: it is
questionable to draw up a definitive project for a country that we do not know and that, in the present, still struggle
for peace and freedom.

2. City lights – Syria: post-war housing project

A contemporary example of how cities have become the arenas of conflict and violence is Syria. The war set
up in its cities produces large-scale suffering and a major challenge in terms of future reconstruction, both physical
and social. Meanwhile, the country continues in this civil struggle, waiting for peace, for a new way of life, and
for its inhabitants who long to return to their roots. According to Maurer (2017), every 3 minutes, more than 3
people are forced to leave the country, and more than 6 million live in shelter communities within Syria. This war
has led to a huge migratory crisis, displacement, misery and immense destruction of the country's cities. Today,
many of Syria's urban landscapes are heaped with rubble and ruins, shrouded in fear and silence by the lack of its
inhabitants.
The developed proposal does not aim at an early and possibly illogical configuration for post-war posterity in
Syria, nor a set of dwellings for a certain unknown area and without urban fabric. The idea thus arises from a
middle ground between architecture to reinvent the cities after they are destroyed and the emergency architecture
of immediate action - a temporary city of shelter to those who return and who long to rebuild their country.
In this context, this proposal aimed to criticize the purpose of the contest, to create a permanent housing model
for the future of Syria and for its inhabitants, who want to return and build a new life in Syria. In fact, it condemns
this pragmatism through the utopia and proposes an immediate, but temporary, solution for when the war is over
along the cities.
Subscribing to Victoria Harris (2011), it becomes necessary a new conscious thought of the actuality. Thus,
the idea of the temporary city emerges exactly as a solution to the crisis in the country in question: the need for
shelter for the return of those who lived there and who yearn to return and rebuild the country.

2.1. Results

According to the criterion of the contest Syria: Post-war Housing for the project life span (over 50 years), a
combination of concepts of housing, temporary and memory was intended, resulting in an interpretation of the
project as a memorial space.
The concept of memory related to the permanence of the ruins set a scene where the remaining walls and the
existing debris would be reused and transformed to the new dwellings, which translated a new approach through
the existing ruins. The content of the past and its brands will continue to be present in the future. In operational
terms, after removing the surrounding debris, the "surviving" pillars will participate in the construction of the
concept in two ways:
 8th International Conference on Building Resilience – ICBR Lisbon’2018

1. in a symbolic sense, the pillars that remain will "swell" and grow with the strength and courage of the
people who want to return. The analogy between pillar and family force is created, and each single-family
housing element will interpret the strength of each family, that is, a pillar that grows according to the
number of familiar elements, creating a set of high dwellings with different heights. The idealization of
the pillar was born of the utopia and as such, the dwellings will be the target of this design (Figure 1).
2. Simultaneously, an urban lighting system will be created on the pavement in the area where the dwellings
are erected. These are located at ground level and will be integrated into the housing complex, in the exact
place where, before the war, there were other pillars of housing or other infrastructures. It is intended to
generate an emblematic light, emphasizing the notion of memorial. In short, some of the demolished pillars
will be replaced by a light earth in their memory and by vertical dwellings that will rise like new pillars.
They will thus be symbolic, figurative and metaphorical elements (Figure 2).

Figure 1: From the ruins to the city. Sequence of the conceptual process of the project. Author's drawing.

Figure 2: Lighting scheme. Connection between sky and earth. Author's drawing.

The concept of memory inherent in design, uses light as a shaping element of remembrance, but also of the
sky-earth connection line. The light in the place of the pillars will thus establish a symbolic relationship between
heaven and earth, the light of the memory of that which lived there projected to the sky. And the very lighting
coming from inhabited dwellings will reinforce this whole symbolic sense of the project.
As a fast-acting architecture, it is necessary to think of the simplification of the constructive methods together
with the recycling of the resulting materials of the ruins and, according to these criteria, to think about the ideal
form for its quick, easy and economic execution. For a conceptual and functional question, the building module
plan was designed to be square - 5,30m x 5,30m - not only because it alludes to the common pillar of square plan,
but also allows a more rational organization of spaces, according to the random provision provided and since it
 8th International Conference on Building Resilience – ICBR Lisbon’2018

deals with mass housing for a large number of people. This dimension also allows the creation of insulated parts
with the same measure for the construction of a prefabricated building, which provides the flexibility of
manufacture and assembly in several places.
Following the thought of rapid and modular construction, the space was divided into two parts - the full and
the empty (Figure 3). This division will functionally organize the tasks and desired spaces of the dwelling,
crowding out certain functions in one place and freeing the rest of the space for others. This idea also goes to the
idea of provisional city, which allows a better manipulation of the space, freeing it to a greater multiplicity of
functions that are not possible to predict from the root. Given the reduced area of the resulting plant (22m2), each
floor of the house will be assigned a floor, these designed in tune with the Syrian architectural thinking and what
appeared to be the needs of its culture (Figure 3).

Figure 3: Full and empty scheme (on the left) and organization of household functions (on the right). Author's drawing.

Investing in the idea of temporary city, it will have to be spaces for daily life, namely commercial areas for the
management and proper functioning of the resident communities. The solution was based on Islamic markets,
known as the souks. Intensifying the idea of own unit and family and once these houses were designed for a rapid
and modular construction, then the possibility of flexibility of the spaces of the ground floor appears, allowing its
opening to the outside, thus disclosing the family's own commerce and the ideal of the Islamic market: foreign
trade and free circulation organized in the form of "streets" (Figure 4). In addition, it allowed the establishment of
a public space, familiar with the creation of ties and social interactions, enabling the formation of bonds of a post-
war society. From an urban complex closed and illuminated at night, may arise, according to the will and
availability of its inhabitants, may occur the opening of the housing during the day, intended for commercial
activity. When adding from this private trade, it was decided not to add a new floor and the proposal evolved into
a combination of the living room on the ground floor with the commercial area, organized second a flexible
architecture within the useful area of the project.
 8th International Conference on Building Resilience – ICBR Lisbon’2018

Figure 4: Market spaces of each family. Author's drawing.

This model of single-family housing aims to occupy as little space as possible, facilitating its multiplication
and housing as many families as possible. The urban space composed of this set of buildings has no minimum or
maximum extent, nor a designated fixed location. This project allows the flexibility in its urban spatial organization
and positioning in the city, through the reproduction of small or large sets, distributed throughout the city.
The proposal designed for the ideas competition “Syria: Post-war Housing” is translated through the metaphor
of the pillar. It illustrates the traces of pre-war urban fabric through a memorial and builds a temporary city that
seeks the urgency to shelter those who want to return to the now uninhabitable country to transform it into their
new home (Figure 5).

Figure 5: Overview. Author's drawing.

When cities begin to reborn, this ephemeral city of life-cycles will take on new functions, taking on a new role
in the city - a new public urban component, where the "pillars" will assume new and varied functions necessary to
the city, linked to commerce, leisure, culture, among others and always lasting its sense of memorial.
Assuming its utopian sense, this urban model that proposes metamorphoses of its own function, will remain as
place of memory (Nora, 1993), as a "monument-town".
 8th International Conference on Building Resilience – ICBR Lisbon’2018

This proposal for the “Syria: Post-War Housing” competition (Figure 6) reached a prominence in the TOP50,
in 253 proposals. Named for a contest like City Lights, the proposal carries a timeline of present and future actions
and supports past memories - remembers what existed and starts a new chapter of a new country.

Figure 6: Panel for the contest Syria: Post-war Housing

3. Discussion section

Postwar reconstruction becomes even more relevant today. When we talk about the reconstruction of the cities
after World War II, it is about interventions in cities of a traumatized population that suffered from the
immeasurable loss and disturbance intrinsic to armed conflicts, and from authoritarianism and its cruelty.
Nowadays, when we speak about wars, we speak mostly of civil wars. And the cities that are to be destroyed are
the houses of societies fragmented by ethnic, religious, and political issues, living directly with the reality of
migration and the deprivation of a peaceful daily life in their country. Thus, the question that arises is: How to
build for these people?
Reminding Barakat (1991), three fundamental values must be followed: hope, peace and reconciliation. Based
on these notions, now and in the future, it is important to think of a social reconstruction through architecture and
beyond urban rebuilding. It is necessary to address such factors as physical destruction and economic and social
recovery for peacebuilding, and thus act in a direction of relief from trauma and the building of social bonds and
peaceful bonds. This responsibility is not merely political, it is also the responsibility of the architects. In this way,
the direction of the cities is their inhabitants and the construction of their patience.
Despite the difficulty of the action, it is hoped that one of the measures to be considered may be contact with
war victims and city dwellers, and their participation in measures to design and present aid and reconstruction
projects. In this way, there can be respect and cooperation between the architect / town planner and the inhabitant,
who is, in fact, his client. This idea was partly realized in the postwar period of England, in several exhibitions
based in different cities with their future strategies (Larkham, 2015), as for example in London in July 1943. But
even so, the inhabitants weren’t heard. The strategy was to present to the public what was planned for its future,
and in this way at least the communication between the architect / urban planner and his main client was
consecrated.
Despite the extreme complexity of building up for such weakened countries and societies, it is hoped that future
reconstruction efforts with countries now at war, such as Syria, will not be implemented lightly and not deliberately
by people external forces that do not commit themselves to solving the associated social problems and which aim
for other purposes, for example economic ones, as was the case in Beirut in Lebanon.
The case of the “Syria: Post-War Housing” competition, despite being an ideas contest, it illustrates very well
this issue: the proposal to intervene in a reality that is, at the outset, unknown to us and that, even with a deeper
investigation into the contexts to intervene, it is still difficult to act without support and contact with local
technicians and inhabitants, without a visit to the devastated space, and without extensive inquiry about the
problems intrinsic to the unleashing of the present conflict.
 8th International Conference on Building Resilience – ICBR Lisbon’2018

For this reason, the answer to the contest has a different purpose: the goal was to create both a memorial and
a temporary city, while the country is built and not for an already built country. Instead of creating an urban
housing component that is part of an unimagined future city, in an idealization of an arbitrarily constructed country,
the idea starts with the concept of a transitional housing space that aims the returning and housing before the
reconstruction of cities. It is considered that it is not legit to think that the future reconstruction of the cities of
Syria can be conceived through ideas from external entities, which at the outset are unaware of the essence and
the intrinsic peculiarities of the country, and which can ignore how to reconstruct a society and its links, in order
to establish peace and set the population.

4. Conclusions

In the end, there is no specific reconstruction strategies after the wars, and the difficulty of the theme does not
point for a unique answer. One can, however, predict that there are some principles of action and weighting
inherent in each specific context that can take shape through architectures that recognize the past of cities and that
present a symbiosis between history, tradition, memory and the future, instituting urban improvements and for the
reconciliation and healing of the trauma of the affected societies.
In this way, the proposal developed during the “Syria Post-war Housing” competition was at the same way a
critic to it, precisely as a warning for fast and ineffective responses to the post-war reconstruction. It takes the
shape of a temporary and fast-building city for those who want to return, representing at the end of the
reconstruction a monument for other functions, allowing a thoughtful planning of the whole city and its intrinsic
problems before and during the war.
While on the one hand the procedures over the last decades have taken divergent and even erroneous directions
in the reconstruction of cities after the wars, it is hoped that on the other hand the strategies to be applied in the
future of Syria, which is still fighting for peace, bear in mind the mistakes of the past, and to look forward to a
vision of right and exemplary reconstruction for the benefit of our society.

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