Table of Contents

List of Illustrations

Preface

Acknowledgements

Introduction

1. A Journey Across the Vanishing Landscape: Making Sense of My Territory

2. The Art of Resistance

3. Bringing Life Back to the Historic Centre of Birzeit

4. Under the Surface

5. Air

6. Seeing Less and Less of the Other

Bibliography

Index

About the Author

Yara Sharif is a practicing architect and an academic, she is a lecturer at Oxford Brookes University and a partner at NG Architects London, an award winning practice that has developed a reputation of working on sustainable community projects with specific interest in issues of cultural identity and responsive design. Her work generally stretches internationally where she mainly looks at design as a means to facilitate and empower forgotten communities, while also interrogating the relationship between politics and architecture. Sharif has co-founded Palestine Regeneration Team (PART); a design-led research group that aims to search for creative and responsive spatial practices in Palestine. Her current research by design has been granted the 2013 commendation award - RIBA's President Award for Research for Outstanding PhD Thesis.

Reviews

'In this subtle, compassionate, and clear-eyed book, Yara Sharif offers architecture as both a tactic of physical resistance and a contesting form of knowledge and possibility – a critical mnemonic for a culture under erasure. Her profound mappings of Palestine beautifully harmonize space and life and, with courageous modesty, advance creativity and improvisation in defense of a beleaguered, precious, normality'.Michael Sorkin, Distinguished Professor of Architecture, City College of New York, President and Founder of Terreform, and Principal of Michael Sorkin Studio