NASSER GOLZARI YARA SHARIF DESIGN RESEARCH FOLIO 2021 STITCHING, HEALING and EMPOWERING Interrogating the Garden As a Space of Reclamation Occupied Palestine

STITCHING, HEALING AND EMPOWERING Interrogating the Garden as a Space of Reclamation Occupied Palestine

NASSER GOLZARI YARA SHARIF DESIGN RESEARCH FOLIO 2021 STITCHING, HEALING AND EMPOWERING Interrogating the Garden as a Space of Reclamation Occupied Palestine

NASSER GOLZARI YARA SHARIF

Architect: Golzari NG Architects and Palestine Regeneration Team (PART): Nasser Golzari, Yara Sharif Funders: AWAN UK, PART, NGA, RIWAQ, Sakiya Collaborators: Awan, RIWAQ (NGO), Sakiya (NGO), Women’s Association of Beit Iksa Location: AWAN Festival UK, Chicago Biennale, Berlin Film Biennale, Beit Iksa, Palestine, Ein Kinya, Palestine Date: 2016-2020 Stitching, Healing and Empowering Interrogating the Garden as a Space of Reclamation

ABSTRACT

This folio sets out recent projects undertaken by Dr Yara Sharif and Dr Nasser Golzari who established the Palestine Regeneration Team (PART) in 2008, with work including designing urban layouts and retrofitting existing buildings in derelict Palestinian towns and villages.

PART combines built and speculative design to enable communities in Occupied Palestine. An overarching theme of recent projects is that of the garden and the landscape and how green space can be used to stitch Palestine together in a sustainable manner following sustained external assaults, and doing so in a way that empowers the Palestinian people. Stitching, healing and empowering are guiding principles in reinforcing their identity and relationship to the land. 1 Golzari and Sharif’s approach brings forward ‘absent’ narratives through spatial means. Using techniques of ‘social mapping’ and the analysis of everyday life and traditional cultural practices in Palestine, the projects promote low-cost, sustainable responses. This work forms part of an ongoing group of interlinked projects which offer architectural interventions to heal rural communities in Palestine.

As working and tested prototypes, the projects are then used as models to be implemented in other villages across the West Bank and Gaza. PART has worked on this with local NGOs, UN-Habitat, and municipalities through the repair of landscapes and the regeneration of historic village centres across the West Bank and in the reconstruction of destroyed neighbourhoods in Gaza.

This folio features case studies which reflect the dual nature of PART’s strategic lessons and models for reclaiming the rural, where pragmatic built interventions are complemented by more speculative and experimental design work. The former is represented here by the Beit Iksa village project near Jerusalem, where a part- ruined village has been regenerated through design participation into a stable and 2 productive landscape where vegetable gardens and eco-playgrounds become spaces of reclamation.

The strategic lessons and models for reclaiming the rural are interwoven with a strand of more speculative and experimental design work, such as the Digital Garden and the Garden of Production projects (2019-ongoing). This is part of both the broader international dissemination of the built work and the development and promotion of a positive, Palestinian-based creative response to a threatened identity that explore the potential for stealth interventions within the fissures created by Israeli occupation.

PART’s ongoing work was short-listed for the RIBA research awards 2016. The Digital Fig. 1 A strategy looking at the birds as a Garden formed the centrepiece of Sharif and Golzari’s curated exhibitions, with means to reclaim the contested sky and Palestinian heritage NGO, RIWAQ: Centre for Architectural Conservation, at the 2019 stitch Palestine’s fragmented landscape together AWAN Festival UK, the Chicago Architecture Biennial and the 2020 Berlinale. collage: NG Architects Figs 2, 3 Beit Iksa village, before and after renovation 3

2 3 Stitching, Healing and Empowering Interrogating the Garden as a Space of Reclamation

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

How may responsive projects at very different scales be developed to help heal and stitch together landscapes and local communities, empowering them within the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? How may village-based eco-projects form part of a wider landscape reclamation strategy to a marginalised community with a context of limited resources and control? What role can the garden play in this in its various physical and conceptual forms? How may speculative and imaginative projects develop the outreach and cultural potential of such initiatives?

GENERAL DESCRIPTION Fig. 4 The rural landscape in the central Sharif and Golzari used the physical realities and cultural ideas of a garden as a tool highlands of Palestine (West Bank today) for regenerating a damaged Palestinian village working with the village to establish with its olive terraces and historic fabrics a new productive landscape. As with all their work, this feeds into a wider strategy linking direct participatory built projects with wider strategic and cultural dimensions.

Through a sequence of responsive design interventions, PART’s overarching aim is to find constructive ways of using architecture and urban design to mend the fragmented Palestinian landscape through the principles of ‘stitching’, ‘healing’ and ‘empowering’. In addition to designing urban strategies and refurbishing buildings in derelict towns and villages in Palestine, PART also engages in speculative design projects that explore hidden potentials within the fissures created by Israeli occupation.

There are many components to PART’s Palestine-wide projects and many iterations to the conceptual and physical use of the garden in using greenery as part of the stitching and empowering process. The garden can become a tool to challenge the land-grab that has followed Israeli occupation and be the inspiration for imaginative projects that can transcend the externally imposed physical restrictions that constrain everyday life for Palestinians under occupation.

Working locally and through participation with specific villages, the projects develop and test models which may then be shared across the Palestinian landscape. Culturally significant heritage buildings and village landscapes are literally stabilised and strengthened along with an emotional strengthening of society. Though physically small, and architecturally all-but-invisible from afar, these live projects, together part of a grassroots architectural engagement, feed into a strategy for regeneration in Palestine more widely.

One of the projects shown in this folio is the semi-ruined village of Beit Iksa near Jerusalem. The village, set in its characteristic terraced landscape of olive grove, suffered in the incursions since 1948 and was largely destroyed in the Israeli offensive Fig. 5 of 1967 (the Six-Day War). Representing Beit Iksa with its surrounding rural landscape

4 5 Stitching, Healing and Empowering Interrogating the Garden as a Space of Reclamation

In this project, Sharif and Golzari’s work – in collaboration with the NGO RIWAQ – forms a strategic infrastructure and landscape scheme, combining structural stabilisation and revitalisation to some important heritage buildings such as the village castle and key historic houses with productive gardens spread across the village at ground level and created on the roofs of the stone-vaulted Ottoman-era houses.

The Beit Iksa project proposes a collective kitchen in a restored structure that allows the women of the village to generating an income by providing school lunches locally alongside a playground to accommodate their children, and environmental and wildlife measures (bird follies). The project was developed through a series of participatory workshops which Sharif and Golzari ran with the local community, in collaboration with RIWAQ. They also tested out available materials, and alternative and affordable construction techniques.

The physical gardens and green roofs are one element of the larger, umbrella garden project across the wider landscape that reclaims both actual territory and the imaginative and cultural sense of a garden as a ‘healing, stitching and empowering’ process for a fragmented Palestine. This concept of the garden expanded beyond the physical into the speculative by Sharif and Golzari working with RIWAQ on the project: ‘Secrets of a Digital Garden: 50 Flowers, 50 Villages’, and with Sakiya on exploring ‘The Garden of Production’. This digital garden has been exhibited at both Chicago Biennale (2019) and 2020 Berlinale. It explores new ways of navigating the landscape of Palestine and assists in an imaginative liberation from restricted material conditions.

Fig. 6 Redefining the West Bank’s aerial map through the flight routes taken by birds

Fig. 7 Beit Iksa before reconstruction

Fig. 8 A speculative scenario to reimagine the Palestinian landscape, flooding the 7 surface 8

6 7 Stitching, Healing and Empowering Interrogating the Garden as a Space of Reclamation

CONTEXT

History and Politics PART projects are grounded in the extraordinary conditions of everyday life in occupied Palestine where an exclusionary representation of its landscape and social narrative by Israel is accompanied by an actual rapid process of physical erasure. The land is overlaid by endless lines of division and barriers; by artefacts of occupation that circumscribe Palestinian villages, towns and cities. These create endless voids and marginal spaces; all of which make the map very difficult to read, let alone to navigate (Sharif, 2019). It has also been catastrophic for the region’s built heritage, 9 cultural landscapes and infrastructure.

The division of the West Bank into Areas A, B, C (indicating various degrees of Israeli control) as a consequence of the Oslo Accords in 1995, has intensified this control through Israeli walls and illegal settlements. Palestine is now an archipelago of communities divided from one another and with limited control over their natural resources such as water or access to farmlands and orchards that were once the 12 physical and economic hinterland to villages, including Beit Iksa.

Area C forms the largest division of the West Bank. 62% of it is farmland and villages but it is under full Israeli control, giving Palestinians no right to build without permits which are consistently refused. In this context, any construction can appear an act of resistance. Figs 9-12 The division of built up areas of Palestine with walls, checkpoints and roadblocks Palestine Regeneration Team PART was founded in London in 2008 by Yara Sharif and Nasser Golzari, who run Photos: Majdi Hadid 10 11 (PART) Golzari NG Architects (NGA) and teach at the University of Westminster, along with co-founder, Murray Fraser, Professor and Vice Dean of Research at The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL. All of PART’s projects are carried out through the agency of Golzari NG Architects. Miriam Ozanne, a mechanical/services engineer at Arup, as well as other environmental specialists, supplement the core team.

PART works closely with international and local organisations and NGOs such as

Fig. 13 UNESCO, UN-Habitat, the Palestinian Engineering Association, Sakiya, the Palestine Palestinian neighbourhoods, fragmented Natural History Museum and RIWAQ: Centre for Architectural Conservation. by the separation wall. Collage: PART PART’s work polemically demands a change of attitude towards architecture and the conservation of cultural heritage away from what is an essentially reactive and romantic act (with monuments and other objects as their focus), to a critical approach embodying a strategy for social change. In Palestine, any act of preserving/ conserving cultural heritage becomes, per se, an act of resistance and a form of creative action.

Cultural Heritage The initial springboard for Golzari and Sharif’s work in Palestine came from partnership with RIWAQ: Centre for Architectural Conservation, a non-profit organisation based in Ramallah which was founded by Suad Amiry in 1991 to protect architectural heritage across Palestine. RIWAQ’s surveys of Palestinian built heritage suggest there are 50,320 historic properties in 422 sites across the West Bank/Gaza Strip. From this, RIWAQ identified ‘50 Villages’ to prioritise, where regeneration would lead to the protection of around half of Palestine’s surviving historic buildings.1

8 9 Stitching, Healing and Empowering Interrogating the Garden as a Space of Reclamation

The pilot project to revive the historic centre of Birzeit, near to Ramallah, won an Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 2013. PART and RIWAQ also jointly won a 2014 Holcim Award for Sustainable Construction in the Middle East Region for their continuing design work for Beit Iksa (as part of that submission).

The Garden Projects The idea of the garden as a space of reclamation emerged from Sharif’s doctorate research exploring spatial possibilities in Palestine. It has found initial physical expression working in villages, including Beit Iksa and Ein Kinya, where the regenerative focus is as much on the spaces between structures as the buildings themselves.

The garden in its representation across history and culture has diverse symbolic meanings. It might also suggest a means for settling in and domestication and a space of leisure and play. As defined by Francis Bacon (1883), gardens are ‘the purest of Fig. 14 Aerial photograph of Beit Iksa, showing human pleasures and the greatest refreshment to the spirits of man’. Equally, gardens the vegetation masking the village from can be spaces of production and place-making.2 They can be a place for collective the sky and further destruction Photo: RIWAQ Photo Archive activity, accumulation, as well as the re-appropriation of nature.

The Palestinian landscape itself has been transformed and threatened by occupation where military destruction, zoning and land confiscation has helped undermine local narratives. This has affected people’s perspectives, needs, and their day-to-day practices. Palestinians’ relationship with their land has transformed gradually, with farming no longer seen as a viable source of income. Instead, increasing numbers of ex-agricultural workers now work in Israel as wage-labourers and, with limited land available, construction encroaches heavily on agricultural land. Much of Palestine’s historical fabric has been abandoned in rural areas.

Fig. 15 For PART, a garden has significance as a way to narrate the rural landscape of Beit Iksa village at the edge of Jerusalem with the surrounding Palestine, with its strong relationship between culture and nature, as a fertile ground settlements and military zones for the reclamation of Palestinian cultural identity and a means to challenge the Image: Luke Evans, David Moore, John Ball colonial project, returning marginal space into a culturally central position. Instead of being alienated, the rural landscape becomes a space of production.

Rural Villages The village of Beit Iksa is located on the outskirts of Jerusalem in Area C of Palestine. It is on an historic route between the city and the coast. There is archaeological evidence for inhabitation from the Hellenistic period onwards. In the early sixteenth century, the village was incorporated into the Ottoman empire and much of its surviving fabric dates from this time. It is set out on terraces amid a traditional olive grove landscape. It was a ‘throne village’ – a centre for tax collection – and has structures dating from various centuries. It was heavily shelled by Israel in 1967 and its semi-ruined state continued in highly challenging conditions with restricted access to land and water. Much of the damaged village fabric became covered with a wild, ad hoc roof of undergrowth, and almost disappeared from aerial views.

The rural landscape such as that of Beit Iksa and Ein Kinya has been intentionally marginalised further by Israeli policies such as monopolising water and other essential resources, typically sold back to Palestinians at inflated prices. Masterplanning also excludes the village from nearby cities. Similarly, the Sakiya Project is located in

10 11 Stitching, Healing and Empowering Interrogating the Garden as a Space of Reclamation

Area C in the village of Ein Kinya. The attempt to rethink it as a Garden of Production is a way to challenge the erasure of the land from the mental and physical map.

In the context of the physical attack experienced by the villagers from the original shelling, and the constant attack on morale, the idea of ‘cultivating’ roof gardens in Beit Iksa is an attempt to offer a connection beyond the physical, social and psychological barriers.

Participatory Design In its participatory design work, PART draws on previous engagement approaches in this sector such as Walter Segal’s self-build, Nabeel Hamdi’s theory of ‘small change’ and the community-driven projects by Teddy Cruz along the Mexican/US border. Within the Palestinian context, participatory work needs to consider the external constraints placed upon communities and the ways in which participatory design might also be a liberationist undertaking that also intensifies a sometimes fractured sense of belonging. At Beit Iksa, for example, a grey-water filtration system was developed by women volunteers, the local plumber and children of the village, testing techniques that would help challenge their dependency on Israeli infrastructure. The approaches have been tested out elsewhere such as PART-guided self-build projects in Gaza.

PART’s projects are always conceived and disseminated within a wider urban strategy to reclaim the landscape practically and imaginatively and the repairing and development of both physical heritage and cultural identity underlies all of this work. The integration of hands-on local building with the landscape-scale, strategic thinking and speculative work is a fundamental to PART’s design approach.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

All Sharif and Golzari’s projects with PART explicitly adopt PART’s wider aims and objectives.

To reclaim and revitalise the destroyed and abandoned historic fabric and derelict landscapes both culturally and economically through creative and participatory architectural approaches to thinking, making and doing, that builds on local initiatives, skills and circumstances. Fig. 16 Speculative imaginary scenarios for the To explore what sustainability means in the context of a country under subversive landscape of Palestine occupation, in social, environmental and economic terms. To work with Collage: PART and Andreas Christoudoulou local resources, skills, materials and possibilities to generate new models of construction, water management, building methods and economic initiatives, and to share these both across Palestine and worldwide. To explore and test the central potential of the garden as a core idea in PART’s ongoing approach, which links imaginative and cultural dimensions to hands-on, practical and economically liberating work, enabling the marginal to become central by validating and celebrating local initiatives. Exploring wider cultural outreach; linking pragmatic and speculative design via installations which disseminate knowledge and potential.

This folio explores the implementation of these at Beit Iksa.

12 13 Jenin

Nablus Tulkarem

Stitching, Healing and Empowering Interrogating the Garden as a Space of Reclamation Ramallah

Jerusalem

Jenin Jenin Bethlehem

Nablus Tulkarem Jenin Nablus Hebron Tulkarem

Nablus Tulkarem

Ramallah

Jerusalem Ramallah Gardens as a space of production. Reclaiming Area C. Reactivitating the left over landscape. farmlands in Area C which form around Jerusalem 80% of the Palestinian rural landscape Bethlehem Ramallah Hebron Jerusalem Bethlehem Gardens as a space of production. Reclaiming Area C Hebron Bethlehem

Gardens as a space of production. Reclaiming Area C. Reactivitating the left over landscape. farmlands in Area C which form around Hebron 80% of the Palestinian rural landscape Fig. 19 Developing the concept of the garden as a space of production in collaboration with Sakiya Fig. 17 Gardens as a space of production. Reclaiming Area C Gardens as a space of production. Reclaiming Area C. Reactivitating the left over landscape. farmlands in Area C which form around Gardens as a Space of Production. 80% of the Palestinian rural landscape Reclaiming Area C

Gardens as a space of production. Reclaiming Area C. Reactivitating the left over landscape. farmlands in Area C which form around Gardens as a80% space of the of Palestinian production. rural Reclaiming landscape Area C

Fig. 18 Developing the concept of the garden as a new process of re-imagining the Gardens as a space of production. Reclaiming Area C landscape

Fig. 20 A conceptual drawing to illustrate the future of the rural landscape with the l e v e l e c a r r e T ‘Digital Flowers’ Reactivating The Margins The Gardens as a Space of Reappropriation D D N O I T C E S C C N O I T C E S B B N O I T C E S The Garden in its representation across history and culture has diverse 14 symbolic meanings, while it might suggest a mean for settling in and 15 l e v e l e c a r r e T domestication, it also suggests a space of leisure and play. As defined by (Bacon 1883) they are ‘the purest of human pleasures and the greatest refreshment to the spirits of man’. Equally, gardens are also perceived Ein Kinya as spaces of production, collective act and accumulation, as well as reappropriation of nature. According to Hunt, gardens are “concentrated or

perfected forms of place-making’Reactivating (Hunt 2000). The Margins l e v e l e c a r r e T For us however, the Garden is a space to narrate the rural landscape of Palestine with its strongThe relationship Gardens between culture as and nature.a Space It is seen of Reappropriation D D N O I T C E S C C N O I T C E S B B N O I T C E S Reactivating The Margins k c i h t m m 0 5 s l e n a p d o o w e t i h w d e r e d n e r e b o t e t e r c n o c d e c r o f n i e r as an active platform to challenge the colonial project that has turned it over time into a leftover,The marginal Garden space. Thisin ‘void’its representation however, with the resistance across history and culture has diverse The Gardens as a Space of Reappropriation tactics that exist, is still open for change despite the attempts to distort it. It D D N O I T C E S C C N O I T C E S B B N O I T C E S symbolic meanings, while it might suggest a mean for settling in and l e v e l e c a r r e T s l i a t e d r o f 0 5 : 1 e l a c s d d n o i t c e s e e s e p a c s d n a l d n a h s i n i f r o o l f f o C C N O I T C E S A l i a t e d e e s still maintains a substantial amount of the Palestinian cultural identity and D D N O I T C E S C C N O I T C E S The Garden in its representation across history and culture has diverse thus, is a fertile grounddomestication, for reclamation. Unlike it also the Palestinian suggests cities a spacewhich of leisure and play. As defined by symbolic meanings, while it might suggest a mean for settling in and are ‘oversaturated’ with construction, the work questions whether the Garden N Section B-B y e K s e t o N l a r e n e G N W R D e u s s I e t a D . o N g n i w a r D 7 0 3 1 A G N o N t c e j o r P (Bacon 1883) they are ‘the purest of human pleasures and the greatest domestication, it also suggests a space of leisure and play. As defined by S T C E T I H C R A ) G N ( I R A Z L O G e h t s i t I . y l n o n o i t a m r f n i r o f e r a s g n i w a r D H S Y 3 1 . 0 1 . 0 1 - A t c e j o r P Q A W I R can radically oppose the colonial project to alienate the landscape and what s l l a W g n i t s i x E s r o t c a r t n o c b u s , s r o t c a r t n o c e h t f o y t i l i b i s n o p s e r Reactivating The Margins d n a s n o i t n e m i d t n a v e l e r l l a k c e h c o t s r e i l p p u s d n a e r t n e C n e m o W a s k I t i e B l a r u t c e t i h c r A r o f e r t n e C e s u o H d e t i n U y r a s s e c e n y n a e k a t d n a e t i s n o s l e v e l 3 A @ 0 0 1 : 1 : e l a c S n o i t a v r e s n o C h t i w n o i t a i c o s s a n i d a o R h t r o N 1 4 - 9 3 (Bacon 1883) they are ‘the purest of human pleasures and the greatest d o o g e k a m d n a l l i f n i / l l a w d e s o p o r P g n i c n e m m o c e r o f e b t u o g n i t t e s d n a s t n e m e r u s a e m e n i t s e l a P , h a l l a m a R P D 9 7 N n o d n o L Edward Said has referred to as Imagined Geography (Said, 1993) which e c a p s n e e r G d e s o p o r P e b d l u o h s s e i c n a p e r c s i d y n A . k r o w g n i d l i u b y n a 5 2 9 6 0 4 2 ) 2 ( 0 7 9 + 2 6 4 8 4 7 6 3 0 2 ) 0 ( 4 4 + refreshment to the spirits of man’. Equally, gardens are also perceived m o t r o i r p e t i s n o r e c i f f o g n i s i v r e p u s e h t o t d e i f i t o n e l t i T g n i w a r D g r o . q a w i r @ o f n i k u . o c . s t c e t i h c r a g n @ o f n i : l i a m E 2 1 0 h s i n i f r o o l f l e v a r g d e s o p o r P . g n i d e e c o r p refreshment to the spirits of man’. Equally, gardens are also perceived t r o h s d e s o p o r p d n a g n i t s i x e s e l i t r o o l f l a n o i t i d a r T constantly work to ‘reinvent’ the rural scene with a deliberate process of The Gardens as a Space of Reappropriation Ein Kinya s n o i t c e s ‘erasing, peeling, cuttingas spaces and pasting’. of production, collective act and accumulation, as well as re- D D N O I T C E S Ein Kinya C C N O I T C E S B B N O I T C E S as spaces of production, collective act and accumulation, as well as reappropriation of nature. According to Hunt, gardens are “concentrated or appropriationThe Garden in of its nature. representation According across to Hunt, history gardens and cultureare “concentrated has diverse or In this case, the garden is not the ‘garden of roses’, rather, a factory of perfectedsymbolic meanings,forms of place-making’ while it might (Hunt suggest 2000). a mean for settling in and production, reclamationperfected and experimentation forms of where place-making’ the land is marked (Hunt 2000). domestication, it also suggests a space of leisure and play. As defined by and remarked and where nature becomes an agent to activate what might For(Bacon us however, 1883) they the are Garden ‘the purest is a space of human to narrate pleasures the rural and landscapethe greatest of otherwise appear as a ‘passive’ landscape ready to be colonised. Our point Terrace level refreshment to the spirits of man’. Equally, gardens are also perceived of departure is the villageFor usof Ein however, Kinya in the the outskirts Garden of Ramallah. is a spaceIn to narrate the rural landscape of Palestine with its strong relationship between culture and nature. It is seen k c i h t m m 0 5 s l e n a p d o o w this collaborative projectPalestine with local with organisation its strong Sakiya, werelationship continue our between culture and nature. It is seen Ein Kinya e t i h w d e r e d n e r e b o t e t e r c n o c d e c r o f n i e r as anspaces active of platformproduction, to challenge collective the act colonialand accumulation, project that as has well turned as re- it over exploration across Palestine to find spatial means to reclaim and reactivate timeappropriation into a leftover, of nature. marginal According space. to Hunt,This ‘void’ gardens however, are “concentrated with the resistance or k c i h t m m 0 5 s l e n a p d o o w e t i h w d e r e d n e r e b o t e t e r c n o c d e c r o f n i e r the landscape. The asproject an seeksactive to reclaim platform Area C towhich challenge forms almost the 80 colonial project that has turned it over tacticsperfected that forms exist, of is place-making’still open for change (Hunt despite2000). the attempts to distort it. It s l i a t e d r o f 0 5 : 1 e l a c s d d n o i t c e s e e s % of the West Bank in Palestine. Area C is an outcome of the land division e p a c s d n a l d n a h s i n i f r o o l f f o C C N O I T C E S A l i a t e d e e s still maintains a substantial amount of the Palestinian cultural identity and time into a leftover, marginal space. This ‘void’ however, with the resistance D D N O I T C E S C C N O I T C E S SECTION BB SECTION CC SECTION D D during the Oslo Agreement which happens to be under full Israeli control thus,For us is however, a fertile groundthe Garden for reclamation. is a space to Unlikenarrate the the Palestinian rural landscape cities ofwhich and yet contains thetactics majority ofthat Palestinian exist, farms is still and ruralopen landscape. for change despite the attempts to distort it. It arePalestine ‘oversaturated’ with its strong with construction, relationship between the work culture questions and whether nature. Itthe is seenGarden s l i a t e d r o f 0 5 : 1 e l a c s d d n o i t c e s e e s N y e K s e t o N l a r e n e G k c i h t N m m 0 W 5 s l R e n a D p d o o w e u s s I e t a D . o N g n i w a r D 7 0 3 1 A G N o N t c e j o r P Section B-B e t i h w d e r e d n e r e b o t e t e r c n o c d e c r o f n i e r S T C E T I H C R A ) G N ( I R A Z L O G e p a c s d n a l d n a h s i n i f r o o l f f o C C N O I T C E S A l i a t e d e e s still maintains a substantial amount of the Palestinian cultural identity and e h t s i t I . y l n o n o i t a m r f n i r o f e r a s g n i w a r D H S Y 3 1 . 0 1 . 0 1 - A t c e j o r P Q A W I R canas an radically active platform oppose theto challenge colonial projectthe colonial to alienate project the that landscape has turned and it what over s l l a W g n i t s i x E s r o t c a r t n o c b u s , s r o t c a r t n o c e h t f o y t i l i b i s n o p s e r C C N O I T C E S d n a s n o i t n e m i d t n a v e l e r l l a k c e h c o t s r e i l p p u s d n a e r t n e C n e m o W a s k I t i e B l a r u t c e t i h c r A r o f e r t n e C e s u o H d e t i n U D D N O I T C E S 3 A @ : 1 : e l a c S h t i w n o i t a i c o s s a n i d o o g e k a m d n a l l i f n i / l l a w d e s o p o r P y r a s s e c e n y n a e k a t d n a e t i s n o s l e v e l 0 0 1 n o i t a v r e s n o C d a o R h t r o N 1 4 - 9 3 Palestine Regeneration Team (PART) g n i c n e m m o c e r o f e b t u o g n i t t e s d n a s t n e m e r u s a e m e n i t s e l a P , h a l l a m a R P D 9 7 N n o d n o L Edwardtime into Said a leftover, has referred marginal to as space.Imagined This Geography ‘void’ however, (Said, with1993) the which resistance e c a p s n e e r G d e s o p o r P e b d l u o h s s e i c n a p e r c s i d y n A . k r o w g n i d l i u b y n a 5 2 9 6 0 4 2 ) 2 ( 0 7 9 + 2 6 4 8 4 7 6 3 0 2 ) 0 ( 4 4 + Series of Gardens stretching across the landscape are in the process of design. These thus, is a fertile ground for reclamation. Unlike the Palestinian cities which o t r o i r p e t i s n o r e c i f f o g n i s i v r e p u s e h t o t d e i f i t o n e l t i T g n i w a r D g r o . q a w i r @ o f n i k u . o c . s t c e t i h c r a g n @ o f n i : l i a m E m 2 1 0 h s i n i f r o o l f l e v a r g d e s o p o r P . g n i d e e c o r p The Garden of Food Production www.palestineregenerationproject.com t r o h s d e s o p o r p d n a g n i t s i x e constantlytactics that work exist, to is ‘reinvent’still open thefor changerural scene despite with the a deliberateattempts to process distort of it. It eveolved as an outcome of our collaborative work with Sakiya. They include: The Garden s e l i t r o o l f l a n o i t i d a r T s n o i t c e s Sakiya, Ein Kinya are ‘oversaturated’ with construction, the work questions whether the Garden s l i a t e d r o f 0 5 : 1 e l a c s d d n o i t c e s e e s of Production, The Digital Garden, The Garden as a Parasite, The Elevated Garden, The e p a c s d n a l d n a h s i n i f r o o l f f o C C N O I T C E S A l i a t e d e e s ‘erasing,still maintains peeling, a substantial cutting and amount pasting’. of the Palestinian cultural identity and N D D N O I T C E S C C N O I T C E S Section B-B y e K s e t o N l a r e n e G N W R D e u s s I e t a D . o N g n i w a r D 7 0 3 1 A G N o N t c e j o r P ‘Life Incubators’, The Garden as a Machine. S T C E T I H C R A ) G N ( I R A Z L O G e h t s i t I . y l n o n o i t a m r f n i r o f e r a s g n i w a r D H S Y 3 1 . 0 1 . 0 1 - A t c e j o r P Q A W I R can radically oppose the colonial project to alienate the landscape and what thus, is a fertile ground for reclamation. Unlike the Palestinian cities which s l l a W g n i t s i x E s r o t c a r t n o c b u s , s r o t c a r t n o c e h t f o y t i l i b i s n o p s e r d n a s n o i t n e m i d t n a v e l e r l l a k c e h c o t s r e i l p p u s d n a e r t n e C n e m o W a s k I t i e B l a r u t c e t i h c r A r o f e r t n e C e s u o H d e t i n U 3 A @ : 1 : e l a c S h t i w n o i t a i c o s s a n i d o o g e k a m d n a l l i f n i / l l a w d e s o p o r P y r a s s e c e n y n a e k a t d n a e t i s n o s l e v e l 0 0 1 n o i t a v r e s n o C d a o R h t r o N 1 4 - 9 3 Inare this ‘oversaturated’ case, the garden with isconstruction, not the ‘garden the ofwork roses’, questions rather, whethera factory the of Garden g n i c n e m m o c e r o f e b t u o g n i t t e s d n a s t n e m e r u s a e m e n i t s e l a P , h a l l a m a R P D 9 7 N n o d n o L Edward Said has referred to as Imagined Geography (Said, 1993) which N e c a p s n e e r G d e s o p o r P e b d l u o h s s e i c n a p e r c s i d y n A . k r o w g n i d l i u b y n a 5 2 9 6 0 4 2 ) 2 ( 0 7 9 + 2 6 4 8 4 7 6 3 0 2 ) 0 ( 4 4 + Section B-B y e K s e t o N l a r e n e G N W R D e u s s I e t a D . o N g n i w a r D 7 0 3 1 A G N o N t c e j o r P S T C E T I H C R A ) G N ( I R A Z L O G o t r o i r p e t i s n o r e c i f f o g n i s i v r e p u s e h t o t d e i f i t o n e l t i T g n i w a r D g r o . q a w i r @ o f n i k u . o c . s t c e t i h c r a g n @ o f n i : l i a m E e h t s i t I . y l n o n o i t a m r f n i r o f e r a s g n i w a r D H S Y 3 1 . 0 1 . 0 1 - A t c e j o r P Q A W I R production,can radically reclamation oppose the colonialand experimentation project to alienate where the the landscape land is marked and what m 2 1 0 s l l a W g n i t s i x E s r o t c a r t n o c b u s , s r o t c a r t n o c e h t f o y t i l i b i s n o p s e r h s i n i f r o o l f l e v a r g d e s o p o r P . g n i d e e c o r p d n a s n o i t n e m i d t n a v e l e r l l a k c e h c o t s r e i l p p u s d n a e r t n e C n e m o W a s k I t i e B l a r u t c e t i h c r A r o f e r t n e C e s u o H d e t i n U 3 A @ : 1 : e l a c S h t i w n o i t a i c o s s a n i t r o h s d e s o p o r p d n a g n i t s i x e d o o g e k a m d n a l l i f n i / l l a w d e s o p o r P y r a s s e c e n y n a e k a t d n a e t i s n o s l e v e l 0 0 1 n o i t a v r e s n o C d a o R h t r o N 1 4 - 9 3 constantly work to ‘reinvent’ the rural scene with a deliberate process of g n i c n e m m o c e r o f e b t u o g n i t t e s d n a s t n e m e r u s a e m e n i t s e l a P , h a l l a m a R P D 9 7 N n o d n o L s e l i t r o o l f l a n o i t i d a r T s n o i t c e s Edward Said has referred to as Imagined Geography (Said, 1993) which 2 6 4 8 4 7 6 3 0 2 ) 0 ( 4 4 + and remarked and where nature becomes an agent to activate what might e c a p s n e e r G d e s o p o r P e b d l u o h s s e i c n a p e r c s i d y n A . k r o w g n i d l i u b y n a 5 2 9 6 0 4 2 ) 2 ( 0 7 9 + o t r o i r p e t i s n o r e c i f f o g n i s i v r e p u s e h t o t d e i f i t o n e l t i T g n i w a r D g r o . q a w i r @ o f n i k u . o c . s t c e t i h c r a g n @ o f n i : l i a m E m 2 1 0 h s i n i f r o o l f l e v a r g d e s o p o r P . g n i d e e c o r p t r o h s d e s o p o r p d n a g n i t s i x e s e l i t r o o l f l a n o i t i d a r T otherwiseconstantly appearwork to as ‘reinvent’ a ‘passive’ the landscape rural scene ready with to abe deliberate colonised. process Our point of ‘erasing, peeling, cutting and pasting’. 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It is the duringotherwise the appear Oslo Agreement as a ‘passive’ which landscape happens ready to be to underbe colonised. full Israeli Our control point Project -A 10.10.13 YSH Terrace level responsibility of the contractors,subcontractors Existing Walls United House Centre for Architectural Beit Iksa Women Centre and suppliers to check all relevant dimentions and in association with Scale: 1: @A3 39-41 North Road Conservation 100 levels on site and take any necessary Proposed wall/infill and make good London N7 9DP Ramallah, Palestine measurements and setting out before commencing otherwise appear as a ‘passive’ landscape ready to be colonised. Our point andof departure yet contains is the the village majority of Ein of PalestinianKinya in the farms outskirts and ruralof Ramallah. landscape. In +44 (0)2036748462 +970(2)2406925 Terrace level any building work. Any discrepancies should be Proposed Green space Email: [email protected] [email protected] Drawing Title notified to the supervising officer on site prior to proceeding. Proposed gravel floor finish 0 1 2 m existing and proposed short Traditional floor tiles this collaborative project with local organisation Sakiya, we continue our sections of departure is the village of Ein Kinya in the outskirts of Ramallah. In this collaborative project with local organisation Sakiya, we continue our Palestineexploration Regeneration across Palestine Team to (PART) find spatial means to reclaim and reactivate The Garden of Food Production Series of Gardens stretching across the landscape are in the process of design. These www.palestineregenerationproject.comthe landscape. The project seeks to reclaim Area C which forms almost 80 exploration across Palestine to find spatial means to reclaim and reactivate Sakiya, Ein Kinya eveolved as an outcome of our collaborative work with Sakiya. They include: The Garden % of the West Bank in Palestine. Area C is an outcome of the land division SECTION BB of Production, STheECTION CC Digital Garden, The Garden as a Parasite, The ElevatedS EGarden,CTION D D The during the Oslo Agreement which happens to be under full Israeli control the landscape. The project seeks to reclaim Area C which forms almost 80 ‘Life Incubators’, The Garden as a Machine. % of the West Bank in Palestine. Area C is an outcome of the land division and yet contains the majority of Palestinian farms and rural landscape. SECTION BB SECTION CC SECTION D D during the Oslo Agreement which happens to be under full Israeli control Palestine Regeneration Team (PART) and yet contains the majority of Palestinian farms and rural landscape. The Garden of Food Production Series of Gardens stretching across the landscape are in the process of design. These www.palestineregenerationproject.com Sakiya, Ein Kinya eveolved as an outcome of our collaborative work with Sakiya. They include: The Garden of Production,wood panels 50mm thick The Digital Garden, The Garden as a Parasite, The Elevated Garden, The reinforced concrete to be rendered white ‘Life Incubators’, The Garden as a Machine. Palestine Regeneration Team (PART) Series of Gardens stretching across the landscape are in the process of design. These see section dd scale 1:50 for details The Garden of Food Production www.palestineregenerationproject.com see detail ASECTION CC of floor finish and landscape eveolved as an outcome of our collaborative work with Sakiya. They include: The Garden SECTION CC SECTION D D Sakiya, Ein Kinya of Production, The Digital Garden, The Garden as a Parasite, The Elevated Garden, The

Project No NGA1307 Drawing No. Date Issue wood pDaneRls 5W0mmN thick General Notes Key N GOLZARI (NG) ARCHITECTS reinforced concrete to be rendered white ‘Life Incubators’, The Garden as a Machine. RIWAQ Project -A 10.10.13 YSH Drawings are for infrmation only. It is the responsibility of the contractors,subcontractors Existing Walls United House Centre for Architectural Beit Iksa Women Centre and suppliers to check all relevant dimentions and in association with Scale: 1: @A3 39-41 North Road Conservation 100 levels on site and take any necessary Proposed wall/infill and make good London N7 9DP Ramallah, Palestine measurements and setting out before commencing +44 (0)2036748462 +970(2)2406925 any building work. Any discrepancies should be Proposed Green space Email: [email protected] [email protected] Drawing Title notified to the supervising officer on site prior to proceeding. Proposed gravel floor finish 0 1 2 m existing and proposed short sections Traditional floor tiles see section dd scale 1:50 for details see detail ASECTION CC of floor finish and landscape SECTION CC SECTION D D

Project No NGA1307 Drawing No. Date Issue DRWN General Notes Key N GOLZARI (NG) ARCHITECTS RIWAQ Project -A 10.10.13 YSH Drawings are for infrmation only. It is the responsibility of the contractors,subcontractors Existing Walls United House Centre for Architectural Beit Iksa Women Centre and suppliers to check all relevant dimentions and in association with Scale: 1: @A3 39-41 North Road Conservation 100 levels on site and take any necessary Proposed wall/infill and make good wood panels 50mm thick London N7 9DP Ramallah, Palestine measurements and setting out before commencing reinforced concrete to be rendered white +44 (0)2036748462 +970(2)2406925 any building work. Any discrepancies should be Proposed Green space Email: [email protected] [email protected] Drawing Title notified to the supervising officer on site prior to proceeding. Proposed gravel floor finish 0 1 2 m existing and proposed short sections Traditional floor tiles

see section dd scale 1:50 for details see detail ASECTION CC of floor finish and landscape SECTION CC SECTION D D

Project No NGA1307 Drawing No. Date Issue DRWN General Notes Key N GOLZARI (NG) ARCHITECTS RIWAQ Project -A 10.10.13 YSH Drawings are for infrmation only. It is the responsibility of the contractors,subcontractors Existing Walls United House Centre for Architectural Beit Iksa Women Centre and suppliers to check all relevant dimentions and in association with Scale: 1: @A3 39-41 North Road Conservation 100 levels on site and take any necessary Proposed wall/infill and make good London N7 9DP Ramallah, Palestine measurements and setting out before commencing +44 (0)2036748462 +970(2)2406925 any building work. Any discrepancies should be Proposed Green space Email: [email protected] [email protected] Drawing Title notified to the supervising officer on site prior to proceeding. Proposed gravel floor finish 0 1 2 m existing and proposed short sections Traditional floor tiles Stitching, Healing and Empowering Interrogating the Garden as a Space of Reclamation

METHODOLOGY

Although grounded in live projects and interventions, often of a domestic scale, Golzari and Sharif’s constant engagement with broader speculative ideas feeds into urban strategies on the national scale too, often revealing further the hidden potential of the landscape in the process.

The speculative and strategic dimensions of the garden projects are also a way of liberating the mental space of the local residents and are thus as important as pragmatic local tasks; research for, and the building of, any project operate in a symbiotic manner throughout the whole process. Design research is not something that happens only in an initial R&D stage, before the architect moves into more normative production mode. PART deploys the full range of techniques for designing/ making including sketches, drawings, models, digital imaging, prototyping, interactive design, materials testing etc.

Given the fragmented and distorted terrain, the projects address this landscape from other perspectives including from above by, for instance, incorporating bird migration patterns into design thinking.

Fig. 21 The principles of ‘stitching’, ‘healing’ and ‘empowering’ govern the aims of PART; the Mapping the marginal landscape of rural Palestine terminology itself governs the projects. Architectural and urban interventions are a means to ‘stitch’ together the fragments caused by many years of Israeli occupation, heal communities by healing land (cultivation) and restoring buildings, as a path to ‘empower’ Palestinian groups. By providing a tangible outcome which immediately benefits the local community, a link is provided between research and something that can be directly understood on the ground.

Social Mapping In terms of its research methods, PART’s distinctive technique of ‘social mapping’ is Fig. 22 Beit Iksa’s urban strategy which reflects used in all projects to explore the spectrum of invisible networks, socio-economic on the rural context and the need to activities and emotional responses to a site within a realm where colonialism has stitch it to its surrounding ‘othered’ the indigenous people. Mapping is not only used as a method to record the facts on the ground using drawings and text but also to imagine scenarios that might happen. They may even provide ironic commentary as a critical reflection on the situation.

These processes are always carried out with local community groups through diverse activities such as interviews, surveys, workshops, archival research and personal observations. Proposals are sketched, modelled and tested as part of developing the final suggestions.

16 17 Stitching, Healing and Empowering Interrogating the Garden as a Space of Reclamation

24 25 28 Figs 23-25 Figs 26-28 Joint workshop between Sakiya and Sketches by PART to explore idea of the PART to discuss concept of the Garden garden of Production with students from Birzeit University and University of Westminster, DS22

18 19 Stitching, Healing and Empowering Interrogating the Garden as a Space of Reclamation

Environmental and Economic PART’s environmental strategy uses greening to create ‘urban pockets’ that stitch Empowerment together the Palestinian built fabric, and reconnect it to the rural landscape beyond. 1. Concrete wall 200-250mm thick. The organisation initially devised this strategy for the Gaza Strip, and later for Hajjah. 2. plastic container/frame to contain the grow 6 medium grow medium to be either earth filled in in water proof Its principles have been described in the booklet Green Initiatives and Guidelines for bags (WPM) or else in rock wool insulation fabric 5 3. water proof membrane/plastic layer covered with an eco sheet (a fabric that allows water to penetrate Building Practices, which apply to both new and refurbished buildings in Palestine. through equally 4. irrigation pipe connected directly to the pump This approach has been pushed even further in the Eco Kitchen project at Beit Iksa 5. brackets to fix the frame tothe wall 6. tension cable for climbing plants 4 7. pump to take water to the high level 0 where PART developed a unique technology, designed using local labour and recycled 0

8. underground storage tank of grey water 0 3 2 materials, that provide Palestine’s first ‘green roofs’—an example of ‘invisible and 2 affordable technologies’ that are inspired by daily cultural practices.

1 PART has reconfigured existing dwellings to save energy and improve internal thermal comfort through simple modifications and/or extensions. Environmental strategies 7 inspired by local practices include seasonal living to respond to the climate. In response, PART created ‘winter rooms’ that face south and allow for capturing heat 0 0 3 through foldable glass pockets and ‘summer rooms’ that are multi-layered to create

0 shading and passive cooling techniques such as the use of evaporative cooling from 5 2 clay panels or water sources to cool down the air. (Clay is used for cooling drinking 210 8 water however here it is used as an integrated part of the skin of the building).

Fig. 29 This has included intensive in situ climate monitoring as well as testing. A politicised Proposed grey water filtration system reading of the need for low-energy, low-tech design seeks to build self-sufficiency 0 1 2 detail developed with Arup group into communities; thus experiments PART first tested and implemented in Gaza are then exported to other places such as Hajjah and Beit Iksa. Physical prototypes can Fig. 30 also become exhibition pieces. Digital Garden staging, Chicago Biennale, 2019 Working with local NGOs and other community groups, interventions such as these photo: Rim Kalsoum reflect Nabeel Hamdi’s idea of ‘small change’, where small-scale, sometimes invisible alterations can ripple through to have far larger repercussions for the community and beyond.3 In this case, the building, remodelling and renovation generated work for local builders, employment for local women and new economic practices such as a ‘swap scheme’.

Speculative Work: Speculative explorations aim to create new forms of dialogue. This is done The Garden and the Air through workshops, exhibitions and installations. Here, the projects draw upon the representation of the garden across history and culture; its diverse symbolic meanings, its relation to domestication and as a space for leisure and play.4 They also draw on air – the space above the ground used by birds and concepts such as the aerial view and concealment.

Installations use drawings and technology to engage the user in collective acts of imagination, and form a kind of dissemination both of the challenges facing Palestinians and of a positive and creative response to it.

20 21 Stitching, Healing and Empowering Interrogating the Garden as a Space of Reclamation

Strategic Dissemination Dissemination of strategies and solutions is endemic to the work in the participatory sharing of knowledge between designers and villagers, as well as the spread of ideas across Palestine and the creation of awareness through the work on the ground and its interpretation through speculative concepts and physical installations.

All these are mutually reinforcing and are expanding from village to village, place to place. This includes an ongoing project with the Natural History Museum in Bethlehem where a new extension by Sharif and Golzari will interrogate the idea of the garden and biodiverse landscape.

OUTPUTS AND FINDINGS

The projects’ outputs span from the pragmatic physical, infrastructure of interventions in villages, such as Beit Iksa, to the imaginative outreach of the Digital Garden and the Garden of Production. The physical projects include the restoration 31 32 of village structures and the activation of the village landscape and economic and Fig. 31 social patterns which is manifest at these different scales. 3D model of Beit Iksa redevelopment

Fig. 32 Beit Iksa scheme plan Project Design Strategy: Beit Iksa is a landscape and infrastructure project and an economic enabling project. Figs 33-35 Refurbishment of Eco Kitchen building Greening Beit Iksa From small interventions, like the bird follies, to full building renovations, the Fig. 36 physical elements are used to test out new construction methods, which often need Eco Kitchen elevation and sections adaptation for traditional forms. Drawings & photos: NG Architects There were some 50-60 unoccupied historic structures at the outset in the village. The project has structurally stabilised some with a view to future occupation and restored others to use. Most interventions were not individual private homes but spaces that could be used collectively. They range from the village castle to a collective eco-kitchen. Projects also looked at the spaces between structures to create a productive landscape that envelopes the village and reconnects it to its hinterland.

Ottoman-era buildings with stone-vault roofs were among those adapted to create a series of green roofs for growing food. The vaults allowed substantial soil depth at the edges and corners of the roof. Early water retention ideas were tested including specialist imported membranes, but instead low-tech, water-retaining recycled 33 34 35 local cork used in food markets for produce was used. Other technologies were adaptations of what was available such as membranes re-purposed from car covers. The green roofs also improve thermal mass.

These green roofs celebrate the stepped terrain of the village while improving the village’s self-efficiency. Grey-water filtration systems irrigate the roofs and other green projects. Smaller green roofs were created for children to look after alongside eco-playgrounds – green spaces where children could play among features such as bicycles that generate electricity for the collective kitchen.

22 23 Stitching, Healing and Empowering Interrogating the Garden as a Space of Reclamation

Eco Kitchen The Eco Kitchen project is not just the kitchen itself but these green roofs and nearby productive and eco-playspace. It is a prototype to explore affordable technologies that can improve the quality of life and challenge residents’ economic and social ‘isolation’. One structure is designed to serve as a kitchen run by the Women’s Association where cultural and social activities can be promoted. It now supplies the local school with meals, offering the women an income through farming and cooking. Some rooms are used as a kindergarten and a library.

Through a training project developed with local NGO Ma’an, the local women are trained in horticulture and catering. The project has created networks across the whole neighbourhood including a ‘knowledge swap scheme’ which has been created, whereby essential items are exchanged within a barter system. The blacksmith, for instance, agreed to produce all of the metalwork needed to restore Beit Iksa’s historic fabric in return for being provided with his own grey-water treatment system and a ‘green roof’ to enhance his own home.

All this work operates with the conceptual idea of the garden and, in particular, its 38 place in Palestinian culture and identity, and its ability to help challenge the colonial project that aims to alienate the landscape via what Edward Said referred to as Imagined Geography. (Said, 1993) Since the British Mandate, this has included giving land over to pine forests and, since the establishment of Israel, ideological projects

Fig. 37 such as ‘making the desert bloom’. Since the 1967 war, the agricultural fields of Beit Village enterprises Iksa have faced an aggressive process of forestation. More recently, this aggressive 37 Fig. 38 forestation has helped with the foundation of the illegal settlement of Ramot that is A typical scene of the Palestinian rural encroaching on the farmland of Beit Iksa and surrounding villages. landscape overtaken by road blocks and illegal Israeli Settlements PART’s greening work and tracing of territories in the air (see below) are a critique Photo: Majdi Hadid of Israeli ‘spaciocidal’ strategies, an added layer to the matrix of spatial possibilities Fig. 39 away from the exhausted surface of the land. Constructed green roof

Figs 40-45 Workshops in collaboration with Women Association and RIWAQ and PART, taking place as part of the Eco Kitchen project to test out the green roof construction and explore alternative passive 40 environmental construction techniques

39 41 42 43 44 45

24 25 Stitching, Healing and Empowering Interrogating the Garden as a Space of Reclamation

Bird Follies in the Garden and Bird Corridors are proposed in rural villages in and around Beit Iksa, meaning green Landscape spaces are not only productive but aim to improve wildlife habitats. This feeds into a wider project of bird follies that both provide habitats and whose locations trace migration patterns across Palestine, flying above ground-level barriers and conceptually reuniting the fragmented landscape. These are used to mark territories that are being lost through political reclamation, etching the lost territory.

In order to create the ‘bird corridors’ through Beit Iksa, bird-watching stations are proposed to be scattered through the village. Bird habitats in the form of bird houses used for feeding birds and for nesting, were also designed to be integrated within the stone façades by taking advantage of the ruins and the voids. The idea was Fig. 46 Speculating the future of the absurd also accompanied by a workshop for children to create a mass of birdhouses that Palestinian Landscape with the Digital together form a new façade for one semi-ruined structure. The bird follies are a way Gardens taking over. Collage: PART and Andreas Christoudoulou of capturing the imagination of the community and become a key moment in a village ‘Memory Belt’ – that is, sites that anchor local identity in place.

Across the wider landscape, larger-scale follies are envisaged as a series of potential towers, part of a conceptual urban strategy to connect the villages of Palestine to the migratory movement of the birds above and mark the villages that are slowly being erased or out of reach as a result of the divide. Their locations, identified on aerial plans, emphasise the matrix of villages and cities to be connected. Over time these towers would accumulate, creating a series of metaphorical ‘aerial bridges’, a form of virtual stitching across the landscape with the follies acting as beacons.

These ‘bird machine’ follies are conceived as a series of vertical structures / posts scattered across the landscape with fabric pockets filled with seeds and other elements, such as twigs for nests. Some of these pockets are imagined as being attached to tensile structures which could stick to hard surfaces like the Separation Wall. The concept was exhibited in London with 1:1 scale towers as part of the 2012 Cultural Olympics to represent the Palestine Pavilion with the support of the British Council. They are subversive in their claiming of air space and nod to the fact that the Israeli forces lose more planes to bird strike than enemy action. The concept builds on a previous installation which envisaged such follies leaning against the separation wall.

Figs 47, 48 Fig. 49 Children making bird houses as part of 3D Visualisation of the imagined bird the Children Eco-Play area follies through Beit Iksa Photos: RIWAQ Image: Part 48

26 27 Stitching, Healing and Empowering Interrogating the Garden as a Space of Reclamation

Digital Garden The recent staging of Secrets of a Digital Garden installation, in collaboration with RIWAQ, at the Chicago Architectural Biennale 2019 and Berlin Film Festival 2020 has been used to explore new forms of narration that create a dialogue about rights to the landscape and activate digital cloud data. It takes the form of a garden representing Palestinian villages. The garden is planted with 50 Perspex ‘digital flowers’, one in each flower bed containing earth from each of RIWAQ’s 50 villages. Each flower contains a USB and a capsule with some organic fragment from each village as ‘digital DNA’. Through a QR code on the petals, visitors can read the story of each village. These flowers are like rare species found in zoos, signalling that without protection they will die, or in the case of the villages, their unique culture and stories will be lost. In this way, it aims to preserves the historic Palestinian landscape in digital form.

The USB and code also links to a digital archive with land registry information whose database relates land plots to their owners. The system helps residents to claim their land and protect it from appropriation. The data-sharing seeks to keep the archive active beyond Palestine.

A state of ‘inbetweenness’ is sought – between the real and the imaginary, surface Fig. 53 and below, absurdity and irony, physical and virtual exists. This becomes fertile Photograph of installation with film ground for reclamation; the garden becomes an active agent. Secret of a Digital Garden produced by Yara Sharif and Nasser Golzari, 2019, shown as part of Berlinale, February Fig. 50 2020. Secrets of the Digital Garden poster; Photo: PART still taken from the film

Figs 51, 52 Secrets of the Digital Garden installation, Chicago Biennale 2019 Photos: PART

51 52

28 29 Stitching, Healing and Empowering Interrogating the Garden as a Space of Reclamation

CRITICAL SELF-APPRAISAL

Sharif and Golzari conclude that the projects successfully seek to appropriate the ‘ordinary’ and the ‘everyday’ and small-scale as a viable alternative to high-tech answers, but the architects admit that the ego-driven desire to create an ‘iconic’ building which could become a more obvious architectural reference remained present at certain moments.

They argue that the architect needs to work hard to remain a facilitator, agent and curator, to allow themselves to remain ‘invisible’ and leave the accumulation of these interventions to make their impact on society. This can only be achieved by matching the community’s aspirations and respecting and engaging with their cultural practices and needs. There is a danger, when working without ego and with deliberate invisibility that the modesty of individual projects means that they are marginalised and under-valued.

However, these architectural aspirations also need to be seen in the socio-political conditions in Palestine, and indeed the global context of capitalism, where limiting access to resources is being used as a strategy to push families out of their villages. Sustainability means empowering the marginalised, rather than creating hi-tech dependent solutions to the challenges of water, heating and cooling. As summed up by environmental geographer Eric Swyngedouw, a fair distribution of resources is crucial to protecting a community’s homes and above all their right to the city:

“The question of urban sustainability is not just about achieving sound, ecological and environmental conditions, but first and foremost about social struggle for access and control to the city itself”.5

30 31 Stitching, Healing and Empowering Interrogating the Garden as a Space of Reclamation

DISSEMINATION, ACHIEVEMENTS, PEER REVIEW Conference PART (2015) Open Gaza, symposium, University of Westminster, 27 November 2015. [co- organised by Nasser Golzari, NG Architects and Michael Sorkin, New York]. Books Fraser, M. (2013) Design Research in Architecture: An overview. (London: Routledge).

Golzari, N (2015) ‘Cultivating Possibilities’, in Bshara, K. and Amiry, S. (eds) Reclaiming Space: The 50 Villages project in rural Palestine. (Ramallah: RIWAQ), pp. 45-69. Lectures Sharif, Y. (2018) ‘Cities and colonialism: The space of colonialism’, Royal Academy, 3 December 2018. Yara Sharif (speaker, presentation). (Available at: https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/ Sharif, Y. (2015) ‘In Search of Spaces of Possibilities’, in Bshara & Amiry, (eds) Reclaiming Space. event/the-space-of-colonialism-cities-and-colonialism).

Golzari, N. and Sharif, Y. (2017) ‘Cultivating Spatial Possibilities in Palestine: Searching for Palestinian Museum (2019) Landscapes of Palestine: New Perspectives since 1999 sub/urban bridges in Beit Iksa, Jerusalem’, in Petrescu, D. and Trogal, K. (eds) The Social Re- (Symposium), Palestinian Museum, Palestine 16 December 2019. (Available at http://www. Production of Architecture: Politics and action in contemporary practice. (London: Routledge). palmuseum.org/landscapes-of-palestine) [accessed 26 March 2020].

Sharif, Y. (2017) Architecture of Resistance: Cultivating moments of possibility within the Zaha Hadid Architects (2019) ‘Unknown: Strategies and Solutions in the Built Environment’, Palestinian Israeli conflict. (London: Routledge). Aga Khan Centre, London, 23 July 2019. Organised by Zaha Hadid Architects, Yara Sharif (speaker). Fraser, M. and Golzari, N. (2017) Architecture and Globalisation in the Persian Gulf Region. (London: Routledge). Sharif, Y. (2018) ‘The Not So Ordinary: Capturing Possibilities Through The Gaps’, Aga Khan Programme Lecture: Harvard University, 19 November 2018. Golzari, N and Sharif, Y. (2021) ‘Absurd-City, Subver-City’ in Terreform (eds) Open Gaza. (New York: UR) (forthcoming), pp.96-119.

Golzari, N. (2017) ‘Variety, Locality and Western Influence in Iran’ in Piesik, S. (ed.) Habitat: Workshops Sharif, Y. and Nasser, G. (2019) ‘Garden as a Machine’, workshop run in collaboration with Vernacular architecture for changing Planet. (London: Thames and Hudson), pp. 272-5. Sakiya, Ein Kinya, Palestine.

Articles Sharif, Y. (2019) ‘Landscape of Time and Immobility’, Landscape Research, 77(7): 872-91. (doi: 10.1080/01426397.2019.1623184) [accessed 26 March 2020]. Fig. 54 Saleem, A. (2011) ‘From Peckham to Palestine: Lessons in building Communities from the Presentation at the Mosaic Room, London, ground’, The Guardian, 15 August 2011. (available at: https://www.theguardian.com/housing- as part of Qalandiya International network/2011/aug/15/peckham-palestine-lessons-building-communities) [accessed 26 March event. (2016) Photo: PART 2020].

Exhibitions Secrets of a Digital Garden (2019), at Chicago Architecture Biennial, 19 September 2019 – 5 January 2020. Film projection and an installation, curated by Yara Sharif and Nasser Golzari.

‘Secrets of a Digital Garden’ (2020), at Berlin Film Festival Berlinale, 20 February – 1 March 2020. Film projection and an installation, curated by Yara Sharif and Nasser Golzari.

‘Moments of Possibilities: Air, Land & Sea’ (2016), part of Qalandiya International, London, 5 October 2016 – 31 October 2016. Curated by Yara Sharif and Nasser Golzari.

Dressing, Undressing the Landscape, London, 1 – 29 March 2019. Curated by Yara Sharif and Nasser Golzari. [Staged in collaboration with Arab Women Artists Now (AWAN), funded by Art Council England, and exhibited across a series of platforms at Rich Mix, University of Westminster and P21 Gallery, London.

‘Searching for Rural Bridges in the Village of Beit Iksa’, at Re-Imagining Rurality, hosted at the University of Westminster, London, 27 – 28 February 2015.

Introducing and discussing the film ‘Infliltrators’, at Human Rights Film Festival, Oxford Brookes, 21 February 2015.

32 33 Stitching, Healing and Empowering

FOOTNOTES

1 Bshara, K. and Amiry, S. (2015) Reclaiming 4 As defined by (Bacon, 1625) they are Space: The 50 Villages project in rural the ‘purest of human pleasures and the Palestine, (Ramallah: RIWAQ). greatest refreshment to the spirits of man’, as well as being spaces of production, 2 Hunt, J.D. (2000) Greater Perfections: collective act and accumulation. According The Practice of Garden Theory, (Penn: to Hunt, gardens are ‘concentrated or University of Pennsylvania Press). perfected forms of place-making’ (Hunt 2000). 3 Hamdi, N (2004) Small Change: The Art of Practice and the Limits of Planning in Cities, 5 Swyngedow, E. (2004) Social Power and (London: Earthscan). the Urbanization of Water: Flows of Power, (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

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