The Fare I Paid Without Thinking
Let me begin with a small daydream I had, sitting at my desk, imagining a trip to New York I…
Author: marie20k5@icloud.com
Articles published under the pen name Ibrahim Fawakherji, an ArchUp columnist with a professional background in architecture, design and building management. This archive brings together his original writing across these fields and urban life. For the column’s editorial focus and essays, visit the Fawakherji Column. Contact ArchUp about reuse permissions; unauthorized republication may be referred for removal.
Hayy Jameel, A Little Too Reserved
Ibrahim Fawakherji — ArchUpI did not visit Hayy Jameel to test how quickly I could walk. I went to see…
Google Maps: The Second Life of a Building
I have, as I write this, something past forty two million views and thirty eight million reads on the photographs…
Marble Is Manufactured by Geology
Marble, porcelain and ceramic compared through material origin, maintenance, environmental declarations and carbon across the life of a building.
When the Workstation Began to Shrink Again
On the sixteenth of October 2026, laptops built on NVIDIA’s RTX Spark platform started reaching the market, five months after…
The Shoeshine Problem
Cover: An editorial adaptation of the author’s original photograph, with visual enhancements and added title typography. © Ibrahim Fawakherji /…
And for the Muslims, Their Like
وَلِلْكَافِرِينَ أَمْثَالُهَا And for the disbelievers will be the like thereof. (Qur’an, Surah Muhammad, 47:10) On an evening in October…
The House That Helped Make the Fog
Imagine a man in London on the evening of the fifth of December, 1952, standing at the window of his…
The Value Is in the Verb, Not the Noun
Place two images side by side on a screen, pixel for pixel identical, and tell one room of people that…
Saving on the Back of a Donkey
Saving money or labor requires reliable vessels, as cash and poorly designed buildings lose value over time through inflation, maintenance,…
The Man Who Draws the Tree From Above
An architect writing under the pen name Ibrahim Fawakherji sets down his own history while still in his early forties,…
The Frozen Date
Imagine you could stop time on the afternoon of the fourteenth of July, 1789, in the instant the crowd poured…
Proud to Be an Architect
Architects fulfill an essential role in society by creating the physical spaces where all human activities occur. Drawing from a…
The Consulting Pyramid Is Collapsing From the Bottom Up
Advancements in technology and artificial intelligence have collapsed the distance to information, undermining authority based solely on status. In professional…
The Louvre’s Stretch Marks: An Architectural Reading of a Museum That Never Sleeps
A critical architectural reading of the Louvre as an aging body under the pressure of memory, visitors, maintenance, and the billions of steps that pass through it.
The Door Is the Smallest Urban Plan
A bus door configuration serves as a foundational element of urban design, significantly influencing transit efficiency and street space. Multi-door…
The Same Fire That Warms the House Can Burn It Down
I have known two versions of the same architect. The first could stand in a half finished room and feel,…
What Abd al-Wahhab Knew at Twenty-Five That Abd al-Ghafour Had Forgotten at Sixty
Ibrahim Fawakherji — ArchUpIn 1995, a television drama called Lan Aish fi Jilbab Abi moved through Arab households with the…
Manchester on Foot: An Architectural Walking Account of a City That Earns More Than Its Reputation
Manchester features a distinct architectural identity defined by the interplay between its Victorian industrial heritage and modern post-industrial regeneration. The…
The Degree That Forgot the Building: Why Architecture School Fails Construction
Modern architectural education prioritizes design theory, formal aesthetics, and visual representation over practical construction knowledge. University faculty often lack extensive…
The Knowledge That Was Never Written Down
Artificial intelligence systems are trained exclusively on documented, explicit human knowledge, leading them to overlook tacit knowledge. This unwritten understanding,…
