Designing Futures, Remembering Home
An 18-month interdisciplinary project with the Syrian diaspora, using design, storytelling, and collective memory to imagine just and healing ways of rebuilding.
Grounded in pluriversal design principles — embracing many cultural perspectives — and embodied community practices such as drawing, storytelling, cooking, and movement, it bridges the cultural and spatial dimensions of rebuilding.
In collaboration with experts and allies in the Netherlands, we create a series of participatory design encounters. Together, we co-produce both tangible and intangible outcomes — from objects and shared spaces to stories and memories — each rooted in lived experience. The process culminates in a collective body of work that expresses and shares the pluriversal nature of rebuilding and remembrance.
How can we imagine and enact just and democratic ways of rebuilding, both within Syria and across its diaspora?
This question is at the heart of Principles To Be Rebuilt. We explore how radical, embodied design methods can foster healing, empowerment, and reconciliation among Syrians in exile. We look at how creative and pluriversal practices can help communities reclaim agency over their narratives, spaces, and futures. And we work to train and mobilize Syrian facilitators, equipping them to carry these participatory design approaches back to communities inside Syria when conditions allow.
Who We Work With
Principles To Be Rebuilt is a collaborative effort. We bring together Syrian creatives in the diaspora, international urban researchers, Dutch academic institutions, and cultural organizations to reimagine just and inclusive ways of rebuilding.
Our Partners
Syrbanism / Young Syrian Urban Network (YSUN) – A network of young Syrian urbanists working in Syria and Germany on people-centered urban research and advocacy. They connect us with communities inside Syria and bring crucial local perspectives to the process.
Studio Huge (Hugo Lopez) – A transdisciplinary practice at the crossroads of art, design, and urbanism, pioneering pluriversal methods for urban and landscape research. They co-develop creative methodologies and contribute to the artistic direction of the project.
Centre of the Just City, TU Delft – An academic partner providing research support, critical reflection, and evaluation tools, while embedding the project’s insights into broader design and urbanism discourse.
Justice by Design (Johnathan Subendran) – An initiative exploring spatial design as an act of justice. They help develop the pedagogical and methodological foundations of our Training of Trainers program.
Co-Funded by:
