Article

• West Bank Settlement and the Transformation of Zionist Housing Ethos from Shelter to Act of Violence

  This paper identifies a transformation in Israel's housing ethos from civilian shelter to national and neoliberal violence. Housing, once materializing the State of Israel’s raison d’etre as shelter from Jewish persecution has transformed to offense and retaliation in struggle over the West Bank, as declared by Prime Minister Netanyahu's noted 'they kill- we build' statement. Conducting close analysis of housing and settlement history since 1967 I challenge accepted historiography of the settlement movement and identify the pivotal moment of change by which the settlement project transformed its housing ethos from civilian shelter to 'civilian occupation' to Kudumim outpost in the early 1990s. This transformation parallels the neoliberalization of the housing market in Israel-proper since the 1990s, protested as neoliberal violence by the 2011 housing protest movement. This paper contributes to our understanding of spatial violence by identifying housing as the object of agonistic violence, invoking Chantalle Mouffe's concept of the object of agonism and pointing to housing as the object of contemporary negotiations over the very terms and values of the Israeli polity.

  This paper identifies a transformation in Israel's housing ethos from civilian shelter to national and neoliberal violence. Housing, once materializing the State of Israel’s raison d’etre as shelter from Jewish persecution has transformed to offense and retaliation in struggle over the West Bank, as declared by Prime Minister Netanyahu's noted 'they kill- we build' statement. Conducting close analysis of housing and settlement history since 1967 I challenge accepted historiography of the settlement movement and identify the pivotal moment of change by which the settlement project transformed its housing ethos from civilian shelter to 'civilian occupation' to Kudumim outpost in the early 1990s. This transformation parallels the neoliberalization of the housing market in Israel-proper since the 1990s, protested as neoliberal violence by the 2011 housing protest movement. This paper contributes to our understanding of spatial violence by identifying housing as the object of...

  This paper identifies a transformation in Israel's housing ethos from civilian shelter to national and neoliberal violence. Housing, once materializing the State of Israel’s raison d’etre as shelter from Jewish persecution has transformed to offense and retaliation in struggle over the...

  Yael Allweil

  13-36

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• On the Spaces of Guerre Moderne: The French Army in Northern Algeria (1954–1962)

  The French Colonial War of Anti-Algerian Independence (1954–1962) is widely regarded as the precursor of civil-military counterinsurgency operations, and thereby of the rhetorical Global War on Terror of today. Its theories, known as the guerre moderne, were secretly transferred to North and South America in the sixties. Since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, however, the United States and other Western powers have overtly expressed their interest in French military practices in Algeria, but seldom in the fields of architecture and territorial planning.

  This article examines the intrinsic relationships between the doctrines of the guerre moderne, the resultant built environments, and the socio-economic consequences of the two over the course of the French war in Algeria. It considers two major timeframes: first, the years between 1954 and 1958, which were characterised by the extraordinary fusion of civil and military authorities, and the construction of camps called centres de regroupement. Second, the period between 1958 and 1962, which brought General Charles de Gaulle back to power, divided military from civil powers, and transformed the camps into ‘rural settlements’. The two phases shared a common attitude, however, which considered the entire Algerian population as potential suspects, and that Algerians should thus be strategically and continuously overseen.

  The French Colonial War of Anti-Algerian Independence (1954–1962) is widely regarded as the precursor of civil-military counterinsurgency operations, and thereby of the rhetorical Global War on Terror of today. Its theories, known as the guerre moderne, were secretly transferred to North and South America in the sixties. Since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, however, the United States and other Western powers have overtly expressed their interest in French military practices in Algeria, but seldom in the fields of architecture and territorial planning.

  This article examines the intrinsic relationships between the doctrines of the guerre moderne, the resultant built environments, and the socio-economic consequences of the two over the course of the French war in Algeria. It considers two major timeframes: first, the years between 1954 and 1958, which were characterised by the extraordinary fusion of civil and military authorities, and the construction of...

  The French Colonial War of Anti-Algerian Independence (1954–1962) is widely regarded as the precursor of civil-military counterinsurgency operations, and thereby of the rhetorical Global War on Terror of today. Its theories, known as the guerre moderne, were secretly transferred to...

  Samia Henni

  37-56

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• Envisioning a Post-Conflict Tripoli: The Inclusive Urban Strategy and Action Plan for Bab Al-Tabbaneh and Jebel Mohsen

  The Inclusive Urban Strategy and Action Plan is a study conducted by a multi-disciplinary international team focused on the post-conflict area of Tripoli, the second largest city of Lebanon. The project includes the neighbourhoods of Bab Al-Tabbaneh and Jebel Mohsen and the conflict zone in between where hostilities ended thanks to the implementation of a security plan in 2014. The aim of the proposal is to initiate and foster peace and reconciliation between the conflicting communities, while addressing spatial, social and economic segregations by a holistic and tactical urban approach.

  The strategy results from a deep study and understanding of the actual fragile conditions in Tripoli, and derives its guidelines from the fractures and the intrinsic resources of the place. It is structured in three main layers (urban armature, functional injections and placemaking) and envisions the possibility to establish new relations and synergies inside the hugely fragmented environment.

  Instead of proposing concrete solutions, the strategy aims at initially generating the necessary conditions to trigger processes of recovery and therefore development, encountering positive outcomes and opportunities as well as possible threats. Adaptability and retrofitting thus became keywords in developing a realistic strategy that can take into consideration the difficulty of programming and making decisions in the context of post-conflict reconstruction.

  The Inclusive Urban Strategy and Action Plan is a study conducted by a multi-disciplinary international team focused on the post-conflict area of Tripoli, the second largest city of Lebanon. The project includes the neighbourhoods of Bab Al-Tabbaneh and Jebel Mohsen and the conflict zone in between where hostilities ended thanks to the implementation of a security plan in 2014. The aim of the proposal is to initiate and foster peace and reconciliation between the conflicting communities, while addressing spatial, social and economic segregations by a holistic and tactical urban approach.

  The strategy results from a deep study and understanding of the actual fragile conditions in Tripoli, and derives its guidelines from the fractures and the intrinsic resources of the place. It is structured in three main layers (urban armature, functional injections and placemaking) and envisions the possibility to establish new relations and synergies inside the...

  The Inclusive Urban Strategy and Action Plan is a study conducted by a multi-disciplinary international team focused on the post-conflict area of Tripoli, the second largest city of Lebanon. The project includes the neighbourhoods of Bab Al-Tabbaneh and Jebel Mohsen and the...

  Fabiano Micocci

  57-78

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• Stasis, Charging the Space of Change

  This article fossicks through the fragments of historical understandings of the word stasis in ancient Greece – where stasis, in its extreme state, involved conflictual hostilities between kindred parties, often termed ‘civil war’ today. Through a series of readings of ancient Greek texts on topics ranging from pathology to literature and politics, stasis is revealed as a powerfully charged state of located dynamic exchange that operates through a precise temporal and spatial performance. This article teases out relevant aspects of the state of stasis – its high levels of spatial engagement, its inevitable resolution into energetic productivity, its precise restraint, its demand for full participation, and its role in the integration of change – all of which were acknowledged as part of the enactment and resolution of a stasis at that time. The intention of this article is to resurrect a more nuanced understanding of the state of stasis that can enrich current concepts of the dynamic in architectural and urban discourse. This understanding of stasis also poses new questions for the future design of spaces that can accommodate charged kindred engagement: lively spaces where contest becomes opportunity, and located spaces of kindred understanding that promise productive reconciliation as the common aim of all the parties involved.

  This article fossicks through the fragments of historical understandings of the word stasis in ancient Greece – where stasis, in its extreme state, involved conflictual hostilities between kindred parties, often termed ‘civil war’ today. Through a series of readings of ancient Greek texts on topics ranging from pathology to literature and politics, stasis is revealed as a powerfully charged state of located dynamic exchange that operates through a precise temporal and spatial performance. This article teases out relevant aspects of the state of stasis – its high levels of spatial engagement, its inevitable resolution into energetic productivity, its precise restraint, its demand for full participation, and its role in the integration of change – all of which were acknowledged as part of the enactment and resolution of a stasis at that time. The intention of this article is to resurrect a more nuanced understanding of the...

  This article fossicks through the fragments of historical understandings of the word stasis in ancient Greece – where stasis, in its extreme state, involved conflictual hostilities between kindred parties, often termed ‘civil war’ today. Through a series of readings of...

  Sarah Riviere

  79-94

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• Militarised Safety: Politics of Exclusion

  Warfare and armed conflict have evolved radically with the advent of technology and perhaps most importantly, with globalization. Unlike the West, which has come to terms with violence through constant memorialization, multidisciplinary discourse and legislature, cities in the developing world lack audible intellectual trajectories. Therefore, studies on the merits of the non-Western conditions of conflict must take into account the complex structures of organization of society, politics, religion and ethnicities, as a result of the globalization of violence. Developing and less politically stable countries like Pakistan, on the other hand, are losing urban space through attacks from the perpetrators and yet more so from the state as the literal subtraction of the public realm gets framed as security measures Whereas international law states that during times of war, civilian rights can be legally suspended - in Pakistan that suspension has shifted into a state of temporariness without prescribed limits. This paper looks at urban space in the developing world as a dual site of the threat and the threatened while questioning the effectivity of security apparatus that have become the foundations for design of the contemporary city.

  Warfare and armed conflict have evolved radically with the advent of technology and perhaps most importantly, with globalization. Unlike the West, which has come to terms with violence through constant memorialization, multidisciplinary discourse and legislature, cities in the developing world lack audible intellectual trajectories. Therefore, studies on the merits of the non-Western conditions of conflict must take into account the complex structures of organization of society, politics, religion and ethnicities, as a result of the globalization of violence. Developing and less politically stable countries like Pakistan, on the other hand, are losing urban space through attacks from the perpetrators and yet more so from the state as the literal subtraction of the public realm gets framed as security measures Whereas international law states that during times of war, civilian rights can be legally suspended - in Pakistan that suspension has shifted into a state of...

  Warfare and armed conflict have evolved radically with the advent of technology and perhaps most importantly, with globalization. Unlike the West, which has come to terms with violence through constant memorialization, multidisciplinary discourse and legislature, cities in the developing world...

  Ayesha Sarfraz, Arsalan Rafique

  95-114

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• Anxious Architecture: Sleep, Identity, and Death in the US-Mexico Borderlands

  The Mexico-US borderlands have been militarised by the technology, weaponry, and policies of both the American Border Patrol agency and Mexican cartels. Upon this contested ground, border-crossers interrupt their taxing journey to build small informal works of architecture. These structures – most commonly fashioned from whatever materials are at hand like thorny mesquite branches, rocks, and grasses – become a locus of crises. Like the migrants, drug mules, or guides who build it, border-crosser architecture has overlapping and competing agendas and motivations. Drawing on the analysis of architectural form, artifacts of material culture, and interviews gathered from fieldwork in the United States and Mexico, I identify three ways architecture acts ‘anxiously’ as a spatial relationship to conflict: 1) sleep (insomnia), 2) identity (anonymity), and 3) death (haunting). In these modes, an architecture born in the borderlands both embodies and emotes anxiety as an adaptive spatial tactic to respond to conflict and trauma.

  The Mexico-US borderlands have been militarised by the technology, weaponry, and policies of both the American Border Patrol agency and Mexican cartels. Upon this contested ground, border-crossers interrupt their taxing journey to build small informal works of architecture. These structures – most commonly fashioned from whatever materials are at hand like thorny mesquite branches, rocks, and grasses – become a locus of crises. Like the migrants, drug mules, or guides who build it, border-crosser architecture has overlapping and competing agendas and motivations. Drawing on the analysis of architectural form, artifacts of material culture, and interviews gathered from fieldwork in the United States and Mexico, I identify three ways architecture acts ‘anxiously’ as a spatial relationship to conflict: 1) sleep (insomnia), 2) identity (anonymity), and 3) death (haunting). In these modes, an architecture born in the borderlands both embodies and emotes anxiety as an adaptive...

  The Mexico-US borderlands have been militarised by the technology, weaponry, and policies of both the American Border Patrol agency and Mexican cartels. Upon this contested ground, border-crossers interrupt their taxing journey to build small informal works of architecture. These structures...

  Sam Grabowska

  115-136

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