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We cannot give a final solution for something which is still finding for some other. We can try to solve or to
design, but we won’t have a role until the place is quiet and peaceable, opened and waiting for a new way of
living. However you can think of those who want to come back, eager for a new place in this incipient
country.
Many houses are now undignified of being kept due to the history that they carry, but beg not to be
forgotten. In a quick glance above Syria’s present image, house pillars rise among destruction, stating, as
well as the families, their strength and existence.
This new housing approach portraits a temporary city that receives those who want to come back. A city
that can be infinitely reproduced, a harbor, while the rest is planned and constructed; a place with housing
and trade, giving each family a pillar to begin a new life.
This place rises from the ruins dissolution and the pillars that remain. Some pillars fall apart, rising lights in
their place, while others bloat with families’ strength and bravery that return to thrive in their inhospitable
country.
A pavement with countless lights are born, with shines that honor certain preexisting pillars unified with a
luminous plethora of lean single-family towers that grow according to the number of members per family,
carrying on their top an enormous light in memory of (…)
The connection between land and sky is established. The lights that born from the earth and from the
“pillars” reach the sky remembering what once existed, lived and in the end disappeared. The earth
becomes the place of the memory while in the sky resides its reflections. The sky holds every image that had
seen it live, and now, in the earth, sees the memory of them all: a big picture of aleatory lights.
Those who are walking on the land are surrounded and warmed by these metaphorical light lines that
connect sky and earth, honoring what lived on the ground and now remains in the sky.
The towers are ordered in an uneven way among the space. Composed by prefabricated modules with the
remaining material from the ruins, these towers contain only one enlightened façade, allowing a near,
random and yet private disposal of blocks, with narrow windows that can shut from the world, closing the
house and highlighting the pillar ideal, freeing the remaining space for domestic areas.
The ground module holds two functions: the traditional guests room and the commercial space. The
furniture that composes the first space is hidden, the façade walls fold, and an external commercial space
opens, that as an unitary system, remits to the “souk/bazzar”.
The second module remits to the traditional “courtyard” where various vases are placed to allow personal
gardens, and the third concentrates the primal house activities: kitchen and living room, organized in a
flexible architecture.
After, the master room module is added, followed by the addition, as much as necessary, of the bedroom
modules according to the number of family elements.
Finally, the terrace is added where a group of solar cells receive and emanate light, protected by a glass
plaque.
This city of prefabs and reused materials is of quick construction. In the end, who wants stay and who wants
leave, and the new empty towers assume new functions that are missing and are necessary to the city.
A place where different living stages are established, a memorial that reminds what was lived and that
narrows what will be lived: a new beginning, a new life, a new country.