A fear of building. (noun)

Architecture is no longer about selecting an empty plot anywhere and slapping a building on top of it- no matter how sustainable or publicly accessible the design may be.

Halfway through earning my architecture degree, I really struggled with presenting my 5th semester project. An abandoned police station in the heart of the city next to a public green space was to be re-designed into a bathhouse. The concept I developed for the design explored architectural responsibility in building adaptation and public life, and tried to capture the complexity of a city in a circular retelling. I was very reluctant to add or even remove any construction, trying to salvage the building and my semester grades through the sheer power of thought. Because estimates of energy expenditure, embodied carbon, and construction waste with no recycling requiem- the numbers and figures were too big and too lived in our everyday urban environment for the design to go on as a dream project. Realizing buildings are wolves dressed as lambs, I developed Buildophobia.

Now I am not entirely sure how we managed to turn a police station into a bathhouse with minimal intervention and excellent grades, but somehow we did. I was left with a grade A and a retirement plan from architecture before I finished year three. Mentally, I was done. Logically, it made no sense to build, no matter how good or sustainable or green the building was. You want to do good? Don’t. That was my key takeaway. What great motivation to finish university and start working hopefully for a greater purpose.

Nevertheless, I still had to complete no less than four design studios to earn my degree and finally stop building. Before going crazy, I had to redefine and rediscover architecture for myself. If architecture wasn’t about building anymore, then what was it about?

Currently the building sector is dependent on finite resources and energy-intensive processes which contribute to 40% of global energy-emissions. And with 70% of the population expected to live in urban settlements by 2050, the demand for building is only on the rise. But at what cost? Environmentally and financially? We cannot afford new cities and the world is one big palimpsest of real estate development scam, centuries old and turned into scum for the next wave of capitalism.

While buildings are being erected faster and more than ever, shortages in housing, public area and tertiary space are growing and persisting problems people face.

Architecture is bold. And I am angry. Architecture claims to be for people; serving space for public activity and free leisure. Applauded and approved on paper. In reality? Another money and life sucking machine of a building running on fuel energy and running out of time. The building use and lifespan determined before construction, deteriorating upon its completion.

If this does not make you sick, then that’s okay. Because the air you breathe inside the room you are sitting in is making you sick. Perhaps you will even catch Buildophobia. And you will die, just like how architecture is dying. It is a symbiotic relationship, you see. Between humans and their homes. Between people and the environment they built, after burning the trees and drying the rivers and flattening the hills. After all this death, expect yours.

And here I propose: Architecture as salvation. It is a big word but no less would be adequate to overcome death. Architecture as salvation for humanity. By making right our wrongs. Let architects solve existing urban and architectural problems. Put your ego aside and let me as a now graduated architect heal you. I (the Architect) have not become the designer of the physical realm out of vanity but out of adversity. I have walked the streets and lived inside your house because creativity died at the hands of cost and now you and I both escape into imaginary worlds into a smaller box of four corners of a deeper black (the screen) than the box of four corners (the room) inside a box of four corners (the house) inside a box of four corners (the block) inside a box of four corners (the neighborhood) inside a box of four corners (the district) inside a box of four corners (the city) inside a box of four corners (the governorate) inside a box of four corners (the country) inside a box of four corners (the region) inside a box of four corners (the continent) inside a box of four corners (the ultimate scope of your perception is the box of four corners). You’ve never really seen more than a region out of tiny hole in a tin box of rounded corners in the sky, which is -so great to you and you so little.

Architecture has been reduced to the face of a new leader or the souvenir of a city. And architects, yes the designers of the physical realm and keepers of God’s creation on earth if you would let them, have been confined to one box of four corners smaller than the one before for centuries now. Money over Matter. Confined and blinded as to who their real clients are, no matter the project. Not the owner, not the developer- but the user. The people. The creation. The end.