RESILIENT GAZA: A Landscape of Resistance

Resilient Gaza: A Groundless Landscape ‘Sabar Gaza’ – Re-Making the Landscapes of Peace “We will stay on our land as long as there is thyme and olives” Gaza and Palestine represent some of the oldest inhabited landscapes of the world. But Palestine and Gaza are no strangers to external control and indeed this is the source of the tenacity of the Palestinian people. The fact that it has hosted so many cultures and peoples stand as testament to its role as a Landscape of Peace throughout history. The preceding year of genocidal war on Gazan’s has brought us to consider a series of critical questions which expand on the idea of what a new landscape of peace could look like in Gaza. The key question is how we can make Gaza self-sufficient, resilient and safe for Gazan’s. Our key question is: How can we improve the self-sufficiency of Gaza in Energy, Food, Water, building Materials and Carbon? So how do we create the Landscapes of Peace: What we describe in our design proposals is a PROCESS, not a building. We see the process of rebuilding Gaza first and foremost as a process of rebuilding its landscapes and restoring the agricultural and cultural heritage of the land for Palestinians. Step 1 is Remediation where we use soil bioengineering and phytoremediation of soils to restore health to denuded soils on the site and to harvest site materials, including gabion wall units made from crushed rubble and on-site grown Bamboo processed into Engineered wood components. Step 2 is the first phase of ‘Rebuilding of New Ground’ from the where interconnected modules are built from site-harvested materials and are structurally linked and lifted off the ground to provide completely covered space at ground level where the process of bioremediation can occur and ‘new ground’ on the roofs of the new buildings is replanted with core culturally significant crops of Thyme, Olives, Sabar Cactus, Jaffna oranges and Handal plants, along with other traditional crops. These provide a self-sufficient food source for Gazans. In addition, we build Rooftop Solar PV for power, Reed Beds for wastewater processing on site, Bamboo Gabions and Biomason concrete products for building materials and layered gardens for food on site. Step 3 is the enhancement and expansion of settlements with adjacent sites developed in a similar process and structurally interlinked to provide a resilient and protected ground. Enhancements such as Basement Air Raid Shelters, Façade mounted Algae biomass systems and aquaculture tanks ensure full self-sufficiency.