60×60 – Post-Conflict Urban Architecture Article
Reimagining Aleppo’s civic life through a human-scaled, participatory, and resilient model of post-conflict urban architecture rooted in community repair.
The Underground Layer: Memory Without Glorification
Memory plays a crucial role in post-conflict cities, yet memorialization must be handled sensitively. The underground gallery beneath the auditorium offers:
- A space for reflecting on past events
- Exhibitions centered on lived experiences
- A separation between remembrance and daily life
By situating this memory layer below ground, the project "60 X 60" avoids monumentalizing trauma while still acknowledging its importance.


Landscape and Overhead Structures
The shaded overhead grid—designed to support insidious plants—recreates the filtered light quality of Aleppo’s old souqs. This living canopy:
- Softens harsh sunlight
- Creates microclimates
- Evokes collective memory through dappled shadow patterns
- Enhances comfort in the plazas and walkways
Overall, the integration of greenery represents renewal, resilience, and a return to life.
Plans, Sections, and Site Logic
The site plan presents three primary components:
- Research and educational wings arranged in modular clusters.
- Central circular auditorium, symbolizing collective voice.
- Commercial and craft areas, reconnecting to the souq tradition.
Sections reveal a careful strategy of maintaining most spaces at ground level for universal accessibility while embedding cultural memory underground.


A New Model for Post-Conflict Urban Architecture
60×60 is not a static building; it is a framework for Aleppo’s social healing. Through simple construction, reclaimed materials, and participatory methods, the project demonstrates how architecture can:
- Rebuild trust
- Stimulate public life
- Restore traditional craft economies
- Enable civic participation
- Shape a safer, more inclusive urban environment
By rooting its form in human behavior and its method in community involvement, 60×60 stands as a powerful prototype for future post-conflict reconstruction efforts worldwide.
In a city where destruction once fractured collective identity, 60×60 offers a path toward reconnection—spatially, socially, and emotionally. Through the clarity of its 60×60 module, the honesty of its material palette, and the inclusivity of its public process, the project by Eyad Rabadi becomes a blueprint for post-conflict urban architecture that is meaningful, buildable, and deeply human.
It is not just a design; it is a call to rebuild together, one 60×60 block at a time.


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