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Architecture for post-war Syria should be easy to build, rebuild and enlarge, and above all – suiting one’s needs. In one word it ought to be modular in different ways, making it also possible to adapt to different shapes of plots and local landscape. The question was: how to achieve such an effect, in terms of material and construction? First of all, it is necessary to use some kind of an iterative pattern.

In our project, this role is fulfilled by modular gabion walls and columns, forming 330x330cm grid. Every gabion wall is filled with stones, rubble, pieces of concrete or building leftovers of various sizes. Walls are supported by steel strengthen gabion columns in nodes of grid. Rubble and stone filled foundation are partly filled with concrete, underneath the columns. The roof is made of steel sheet, covered with soil, clay or sand. This pattern can be multiplied into bigger structure by raising new modules by the existing ones and creating openings in walls, and hence – individual architecture. Another rooms, houses or neighbourhoods arise through building next extensions of that spatial pattern. Though even the smallest housing unit meets basic human needs, multiplication and simplicity are the keys.

Used materials are culturally adapted and tamed, as well as accessible on post-war terrain. Our architectural form is not humiliating as ship containers could be – it’s local in terms of materials. Being built by the people themselves, it is not imposed in any way.

We should also take a wider perspective of using this pattern as urban solution – in terms of „Do-it-yourself” (DIY) city formula – to make contacts through different groups easier, in a country torn by civil war. Urban fabric made of modular architecture could form urban space of uniting, equalizing character. This could be the way, how debris of past can become the substructure of the future.

Delivered as „gabion construction kits” it is easy to assemble. No electricity or cranes are needed, only simple tools. Design is understandable and can’t be done wrongly. Walls and roofing are marked clearly and assembling the unit doesn’t require certain building skills. Everyone can therefore take part in reconstruction of his surroundings. Lightweight and simple elements and tools could be easily put on truck and distributed in another place, where people, who have rebuilt their homes, could train others and thus build whole villages around one, pattern starting unit.