Identity, Continuation, and Belonging Through Displacement
Noor Zakaria
2026
Dean’s Citation for Excellence in Design Research
This project investigates domesticity in the context of displacement, post-deconstruction, and instability, exploring how a home continues when permanence, land, and architectural continuity are denied. Domesticity is viewed as an active and changing practice maintained through objects, practices, and routine, rather than treating architecture as a fixed or territorial construct. It explores how, in the face of demolition and tragedy, domestic life becomes an essential framework for preserving cultural identity, memory, and belonging.
Domestic practices take on the role of emotional anchors and carriers of nostalgia, mediating between continuity, loss, and longing. In this context, domesticity becomes a lived practice rather than a physical condition. The physical context of the project is embedded in the rubble and debris of the aftermath of conflict. These landscapes are often treated as something to clear away to rebuild, but this project begins from the moment before rebuilding, as people return, finding their homes destroyed. Rubble and fragments are used to construct spaces where collective life returns, showing signs of hope and the revival of community. Before reconstructing buildings, this project reconstructs domestic life. Prioritizing practices and community as the foundation for recovery.