An Elegy for Architecture
Ibrahim Fawakherji reflects on the significance of personal digital archives through an old hard drive containing twenty years of work….
ArchUp
The Louvre Without the Mona Lisa
A visit to the Louvre highlights the overwhelming cultural and physical influence of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. Despite its…
I Went to See Calder, and Found a System Trying to Escape the Canvas
The exhibition traces Alexander Calder’s transition from representational paintings of industrial life to the development of kinetic sculpture. His early…
My Partner Has No Name Yet
The architecture industry is shifting from foundational AI models to autonomous agents. Unlike simple tools, these systems execute complex administrative…
Feliza Bursztyn School: Integrating Learning into the Urban Fabric
Urban Fabric Balancing the City and the Educational Environment The project occupies a strategic site in Bogotá at the junction…
The Kingdom of the Stone Markers
From an aircraft, or from a satellite, the oldest human decision in Arabia is still visible. Across the black lava…
Addicted, and My Audience Is Half a Million Robots
Ibrahim Fawakherji — ArchUp I have been asking myself a question recently that has no comfortable answer. Do I love…
Maida Hill Public Amenities Pavilion and the Urban Quarry Concept
Material Transformation from the Financial District to the Civic Realm The architectural concept of the building is based on the…
When the Stone Was the Payroll
Medieval masons’ marks, found on structures like the Louvre, functioned as a sophisticated accounting system for piecework labor. These carved…
Cafe N+: Bridging Historic Context and Contemporary Cultural Life
Dynamics of Circulation and Spatial Composition The building presents an interwoven spatial composition that redefines the relationship between history and…
La Défense: Twenty Years Later
An architectural return to the La Défense district in Paris reveals the physical and social shifts occurring over twenty years….
The Louvre: The Building Before the Art
The Louvre serves as a monumental record of Western architectural evolution, transitioning from a medieval fortress to a royal palace…
The Mona Lisa: From a House in Florence to a Room in Paris
The Mona Lisa represents a series of displacements, moving from its origins as a portrait of Lisa Gherardini in Florence…
The Day Paris Closed
The final stage of the 2026 Tour de France transformed Paris from a vehicle-dominated space into a pedestrian-oriented commons. The…
The Other Face of La Défense: A District That Was Never on the Postcard
The Les Damiers and Les Miroirs complexes near Paris’s La Défense district represent an ambitious Brutalist effort to integrate residential…
When Architecture Waits for Art: Gehry’s Fondation Louis Vuitton
Calder: Rêver en Équilibre at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris highlights the synergy between Frank Gehry’s architecture and Alexander…
The Peak Generation: What Architecture Does When Humanity Stops Growing
Global population projections indicate growth will likely peak this century, driven by declining fertility rates rather than increased mortality. This…
World Cup Jet Lag
The 2026 World Cup triggered global social jet lag, disrupting the biological rhythms of fans and cities in distant time zones. By prioritizing North American broadcast schedules, the tournament forced populations to override daily routines, impacting energy and infrastructure. This highlights the need for temporal urbanism, accounting for how global events manipulate a city’s collective clock.
Kinderoase an der TUM Redefines Urban Daycare
Spatial Scenography and Vertical Extension The architectural concept behind Kinderoase an der TUM redefines the conventional daycare center by adopting…
Architecture Beyond the Human Eye
Ibrahim Fawakherji — ArchUp After the response to the Cat’s Eyes piece, a question arrived that I had not seriously…
Before You Enter the Office
Ibrahim Fawakherji — ArchUp Every summer the same scene repeats itself. Architecture students, engineering students, interior design students, begin sending…
