A Project About Hom[e]s

Among the cities that Syrians are returning to is Homs, a city that has witnessed devastating destruction. Despite that, it is a city that so many still call home, and are travelling back to after lives lived overseas. It is that home that this project is working towards. 

This is an ongoing project in collaboration with TIAFI. Building on former work done with Studio 10 in 2023 at the former Izmir location, this project aims to iterate on the successes and shortcomings while exploring a more personal and sensitive architectural methodology. 

Design work being done in the context of recovery must challenge an accepted convention of repeatable and universal remedies. And so, this thesis takes a bottom-up approach to imagining the architecture of recovery by listening to the stories of displacement faced globally and capturing interpretations through a more evocative medium such as paint. The qualities gleaned from this methodology then inform how TIAFI might manifest in the Syrian city Homs.

At the bottom, this manifestation starts with the three pillars of people that TIAFI addresses: The Starving, The Injured, and the Lost. Working up, the proposal places the design in the Old Souk, a place where many might think to go with nowhere else to go. Just as people have added to the market through centuries, the TIAFI center is just another layer after another conflict. There is memory in the walls and the ground, and respect for the context is key to giving richness to the new memories people will create here. It is the respectful work of sewing together architectural layers that’s motivated by the need to sew together the torn tapestry of Homs. 

In every fiber of the Homs tapestry there is a compelling hope to be found in the beauty of individual lives improving.