Spectres — Empire and Extractivism
The opening debate addresses some of the most complex dimensions of weight — looking at the ghosts, ruins and inherited pressures of extraction, colonialism and terraforming gestures — to interrogate how histories of violence haunt present ecologies and infrastructures, and how these unresolved spectres press upon cities, territories and bodies.
Participants: Kenny Cupers, Michael Marder, Yara Sharif and Nasser Golzari (Architects for Gaza)
Moderator: Christele Harrouk
Participants
Kenny Cupers
Kenny Cupers is an architectural historian and professor at the University of Basel, where he directs the Urban Studies program. His research focuses on the relationship between built environments and changing societies in African and European contexts. Cupers’ interests lie in how design and infrastructure mediate social life and political power. He is the author of The Social Project: Housing Postwar France (2014) and The Earth that Modernism Built (2024), which traces the rise of planetary design to an imperialist discourse about the influence of the earthly environment on humanity. Grounded in the collaborative project "Kamĩrĩĩthũ Afterlives," he is currently working on a book project examining how workers and peasants mobilized arts and architecture to unmake the plantation system.
Michael Marder
Michael Marder is IKERBASQUE Research Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of the Basque Country (UPV-EHU), Vitoria-Gasteiz, and Senior Fellow at the Institute for Global Reconstitution (IGRec), Berlin. His latest book is Pyropolitics: Fire and the Political (2025).
Yara Sharif
Yara Sharif is Senior Lecturer at the University of Westminster and co-founder of the Palestine Regeneration Team (PART), a design-led collective grappling with reconstruction, self-build, and spatial justice in Middle Eastern contexts. Her doctoral research (Architecture of Resistance) won the RIBA President’s Award for Research (2013), and she has led award-winning collaborations with Riwaq and NG Architects on Beit Iksa Eco Kitchen and Birzeit regeneration projects. In November 2023, she co-founded Architects for Gaza with Nasser Golzari, mobilizing global design practitioners to partner with displaced communities, reimagining home, memory and collective futures in Gaza through speculative and live-built environments.
Nasser Golzari
Nasser Golzari is an architect, academic, and founding principal of NG Architects and of Architects for Gaza. As Course Leader at University of Westminster, he pursues socially rooted architecture through historical and contemporary research on sustainability, cultural identity, and urban regeneration. Co-founder of PART and of Architects for Gaza, both with Yara Sharif, he works on self-help reconstruction initiatives alongside community-led planning across war-torn landscapes. His award-winning collaborations—including with Riwaq—span sustainable design infrastructure in Palestine and exhibitions across London, Sharjah, Venice and others.
Christele Harrouk
French-Lebanese architect, urban designer, and Editor-in-Chief of ArchDaily, the world’s leading architecture platform. Since joining in 2019, Harrouk has played a key role in shaping ArchDaily’s editorial direction, strengthening industry partnerships, and driving innovative content strategies that bridge architecture, media, and urban development.
A passionate advocate for diverse voices in architecture, Christele actively contributes to global discussions as a speaker, panelist, and writer, fostering meaningful conversations on the built environment. Master’s in Urban Design and a Master’s in Architecture, blending her design expertise with a deep understanding of media’s role in shaping the profession.