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By Ibrahim FawakherjiIn 1969, the United States inhabited a state of profound schizophrenia. It was the year humanity, propelled by American engineering, first set foot on the lunar surface. Yet, while the world watched the flickering gray images of the…
Architectural Vision Beyond SymbolismImagine the Chicago skyline not merely as an expression of economic power, but as a system that supports daily life. In this vision, skyscrapers do more than define the city’s silhouette, they become active structures: growing food,…
America did not change in sudden, tectonic shifts. It evolved quietly, almost imperceptibly, through the introduction of ordinary objects that slowly redefined the rituals of how people lived, moved, ate, and gathered. To the observant critic, Architecture was rarely the…
If the world is changing, it would be intellectually dishonest to assume that housing will remain untouched. Throughout history, architecture has never led social transformation; it has always followed it. When theorists, technologists, and public figures speak today about a…
For the past weeks, much of the global discussion surrounding THE LINE has fixated on a single word: the trench. Images of a long excavation have circulated widely, often framed as evidence of uncertainty, pause, or excess. Yet history suggests…
There is a dangerous misunderstanding in contemporary architectural discourse: that discussing social classes in planning is inherently discriminatory, or that acknowledging economic stratification somehow undermines the moral neutrality of the built environment. Yet the opposite is true. Cities do not…
In August of last year, I came across a research project titled Last Meal, a speculative investigation into how the explosive rise of food-delivery logistics is reshaping not only urban movement but the architecture of living itself. The study argued…
Urban planning rarely collapses in a spectacular way. It usually unravels quietly in the background of bureaucratic corridors, during site visits, or in the forgotten margins of decision making. A curb here. A sidewalk there. A resurfaced parking area. Small…
There is a small but unforgettable moment in the history of the Cold War, a moment that belongs less to geopolitics and more to the strange power of architecture. During a diplomatic exchange between President John F. Kennedy and Soviet…
There are cities where time behaves normally, cities where the decades stack in clear layers like sediment on a riverbank. And then there are places where the clock hesitates, where the years fold into each other so tightly that you…
I once sat in a lecture where the speaker, after stacking dozens of sketches of so-called Islamic cities, announced that there is no such thing as Islamic architecture. He claimed the category was invented by Orientalists. It was a striking…
By Ibrahim JoharjiCities today are being remade not by planners, but by delivery riders. A sleek curtain rises on a new urban reality: restaurants carving delivery windows, teams of motorbike riders forming in silent corners, and architectural space being quietly…
The Architectural Flaw No One Dares to Fix There’s a silent intruder haunting the skylines of our new suburbs and it’s not a billboard or a satellite dish. It’s the elevator machine room. Obtrusive. Inelegant. Unnecessary. And worst of all?…
When wandering major cities or historic neighborhoods, the eye is inevitably drawn to the storefront sign—an element that boldly interrupts the cityscape, embodying a spectrum from sophisticated taste to visual chaos. The sign is far more than a functional label…
Saudi Arabia today faces a structural gap between government-backed mega urban projects—such as the tallest towers and grand developments in Jeddah—and the residential reality in suburban areas, where construction quality is often poor, and design lacks architectural standards or clear…
In the wake of escalating rhetoric and missile exchanges between Iran and Israel, communities in neighboring regions — from the Gulf (Kuwait, UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, Saudi Arabia) to the Levant (Jordan, Lebanon, Syria) — are facing a new reality….
✧ In an era where the question is shifting from “Who built the most?” to “Who built the best?”, a long-standing debate resurfaces regarding the roles of Egyptian and Saudi engineers in the architectural renaissance of the Gulf. A trending…
Humanity’s deep-rooted impulse to preserve sacred texts, cultural symbols, communal memories is inseparable from architecture. Throughout history, buildings served not only as shelters but also as living archives of belief, knowledge, and identity. This exploration navigates the nexus between faith,…
In a world where ideas are usually built with rulers and pencils, a surprising project involving LEGO and architecture is redefining how we look at architectural design. With 150,000 LEGO bricks, Richard Paules has transformed a childhood hobby into an…
As the largest annual gathering of people on Earth, Hajj brings together nearly three million Muslims from around the globe to perform one of the core pillars of Islam. Each year, the government of Saudi Arabia faces immense logistical challenges…
A Groundbreaking Innovation in Sustainable MasonryIn 2024, after two years of intensive research and development, NEUF architect(e)s, Webster & Sons, and Permacon introduced DUAL, a revolutionary concrete brick designed to address one of the construction industry’s most urgent challenges: carbon…
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