Architecture of Resistance ─ Cultivating Moments of Possibility Within the Palestinian/Israeli Conflict

Architecture of Resistance investigates the relationship between architecture, politics and power, and how these factors interplay in light of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. It takes Palestine as the key ground of spatial exploration, looking at the spaces between people, boundary lines, documents and maps in a search for the meaning of architecture of resistance. Stemming from the need for an alternative discourse that can nourish the Palestinian spaces of imagination, the author reinterprets the land from a new perspective, by stripping it of the dominant power of lines to expose the hidden dynamic topography born out of everyday Palestine. It applies a hybrid approach of research through design and visual documentary, through text, illustrations, mapping techniques and collages, to capture the absent local narrative as an essential component of spatial investigation.

Yara Sharif is a practicing architect and an academic, she is a lecturer at Oxford Brookes University and a partner at NG Architects London, an award winning practice that has developed a reputation of working on sustainable community projects with specific interest in issues of cultural identity and responsive design. Her work generally stretches internationally where she mainly looks at design as a means to facilitate and empower forgotten communities, while also interrogating the relationship between politics and architecture. Sharif has co-founded Palestine Regeneration Team (PART); a design-led research group that aims to search for creative and responsive spatial practices in Palestine. Her current research by design has been granted the 2013 commendation award?– RIBA's President Award for Research for Outstanding PhD Thesis.