A War for Parking: When Cities Run Out of Space
There are moments in urban life that reveal more about a city than any masterplan, zoning document, or public consultation…
Author: Ibrahim Fawakherji
Fawakherji is the editorial pen name of a practicing architect and researcher whose architectural practice dates to 2006. He has written the Fawakherji column on ArchUp since 2019, exploring architecture, cities, design culture, society and technology. Visit the Fawakherji column for essays and the column’s editorial focus, the author archive for posts attributed to this byline, or the community member profile for BuddyPress profile information.
Ludwig II: The Architect King
History rarely produces a monarch who is remembered not for his battles, alliances, or political achievements, but for the architecture…
Planning on Top of Planning: The Hidden Cost of Municipal Reversals
Urban planning rarely collapses in a spectacular way. It usually unravels quietly in the background of bureaucratic corridors, during site…
The Book Is Known by Its Cover: What Old Houses Reveal About Their Owners
There is a truth in architecture that reveals itself only when you walk through enough old houses. Not the polished…
The Hidden Architecture of Holes: Rethinking Core Drilling in Concrete Structures
There is a moment in every project when the drawing meets the drill. The structure has been cast, the reinforcement…
American Decoration: How a Nation Turned Its Lifestyle into Global Architecture
There is a small but unforgettable moment in the history of the Cold War, a moment that belongs less to…
The Architectural Time Machine
There are cities where time behaves normally, cities where the decades stack in clear layers like sediment on a riverbank….
Public Relations: The Silent Saboteur of Architectural Projects
There is a particular kind of silence that follows the fall of a project. It is not the noise of…
Architecture in 2050: When Design Becomes a Form of Survival
There are evenings when the future feels like a sound more than an idea, like the quiet hum that passes…
The Sponge City: Where Architecture Learns to Hold Water
The future of cities will not be shaped by skylines, but by what lies beneath them.In the coming decades, the…
Who Pays for the Song We Dance To
There are moments in architecture when the entire profession collapses into one question.Not a question of structure or budget or…
The Architecture of Mohammed bin Salman: Beyond the Headlines
In recent weeks, international media have flooded the conversation around Saudi Arabia’s THE LINE with reports from The Financial Times…
The Myth of Bigger Steel: When Strength Isn’t Just Diameter
It started with what looked like a simple question.On site, I asked if increasing the steel diameter — say from…
Professional Jealousy in Architecture
It began like nostalgia.A morning meeting, a familiar face, the warmth of recognition that quickly turns into something colder.We were…
Variation Math: Lessons from the Site
It was supposed to be a simple variation.But variations, like cracks in concrete, reveal more than they fix.Earlier this week,…
Withdrawal but Tactical
In the world of architecture, not every silence means failure.Sometimes a project stops not because it dies, but because it…
The Bureaucracy of Wikipedia, the Speed of Twitter, and the Explosion of ArchUp
A few months ago, a well-known architect one of those rare minds who actually invents new theories instead of merely…
The House of a Lifetime: Between Wisdom, Wealth, and the Web of a Spider
A few weeks ago, during a family gathering, I found myself sitting beside a man whose reputation precedes him.A poet,…
The Anxiety of Construction: Between Precision and Perfection
There is a certain kind of fear that only builders know.It is not the fear of deadlines or budgets, but…
The Tone of Authority: Understanding Hierarchy in Construction
In the architecture and construction world, projects rarely fail because of concrete or steel. They fail because of tone.Not the…
The Architecture of Demolition: When Destruction Becomes Design
Demolition has always carried a stigma.To destroy is to erase, to forget, to undo what was once sacred.But in the…
