An Anamnesis: Reconstruction of a War-Torn Community

AN ANAMNESIS: RECONSTRUCTION OF A WAR-TORN COMMUNITY

Modern-day ‘Syria’ is one of the most ancient inhabited regions on earth with a rich history and culture. Due to its lucrative geographical location, it has been occupied and ruled by many empires in the past but the unrest created by the civil war that started in the year 2011 shook the world and resulted in one of the worst destructions of the infrastructures and the loss of lives as well as the displacement and refugee crisis that the world has ever seen. Among many cities in Syria, Aleppo reportedly faced some of the civil war’s most devastating bombings often in the residential areas. Causing the death toll to rise and torn apart the city.

‘Whether they have been leveled by war or earthquake, cities don’t tend to stay wasteland forever.”

The site of the project is selected to be near the heart of the city, the Citadel to start the healing process with one of the partially damaged neighborhoods, Bayada. The neighborhood contains the urban characteristic of traditional Islamic cities. To re-design, there needed to be found a solution to integrate both the need for traditional practices and the need for modern-day requirements in a housing community.

The concept can be defined by two words ‘Memory’ and ‘Hope’ to re-create the destroyed residential urban pattern for the people who have been forced to leave their homes but memories of these places are forever seared into their hearts. With memories, the project tried to reflect those ideas and familiarity into the re-design process. Even though some of these places are completely destroyed, the rubbles still hold the essence of the home.

In a post-war scenario, the housing solution is designed with careful considerations of the context and traditional practices through architecture. Flexible living units are designed with multi-functional spaces ensuring privacy factors according to the users’ needs. Traditional courtyard-type living unit is suggested for different types of family patterns and clustered together for better integration and moral support. Every type of single living unit cluster can be converted to a block unit for extended families.

The rehabilitation process is distributed in multiple phases to ease the returnees through the whole healing stage gradually. Thus, the masterplan development is done with the careful study of the previous site context and the immediate requirements of the people and their sense of recollection of memories of the place. This redevelopment system is designed to involve the community in the reconstruction process and to integrate the neighboring communities.

The design aims to attain sustainability in the economic sector, the environmental aspect as well as in construction methods and materials. Here, tons of rubbles and debris from the destroyed structures can be taken as great advantage by recycling and producing new building materials. New technology with basic construction tools can produce more flexible and cost-efficient building elements for fast development. Production units in every household enable the residents to become financially stable and make their own homes into sustainable modules.

The project is thought to give a healing environment where Syrians return to reclaim their identity and their home where they can share memories of what sooner or later finally will be history, to face the hard challenges Syria will have to overcome.