Rethinking architecture and urbanism through a post-colonial lens.

On November 6, I took part in a discussion at Sapienza University of Rome – Valle Giulia, organised by the Palestinian Community of Rome and Lazio and UDU, dedicated to the theme “Palestine as a space to be rebuilt — between identity, memory, and control.”

Together with Gabriele Berti, as co-founders of Urbanist* and Architett* per la Palestina, we explored how architecture and urban planning can be reimagined as political, decolonial, and collectively responsible practices.

Our intervention focused on intersectional urbanism as a tool to read spatial inequalities and give voice to those who are often excluded or rendered invisible in planning processes. We discussed the deep connection between spaciocide and ecocide — two intertwined forms of violence that act simultaneously on territories and ecosystems, erasing cultures, memories, and landscapes.

We also addressed the notion of neuro-architectures of domination and neurocolonialism: the subtle ways in which power not only occupies space but also rewrites the perceptive and cognitive codes through which we learn to think about it.

Finally, we reflected on the ethical responsibility of designers to dismantle the logics of domination hidden behind the rhetoric of reconstruction and technical cooperation — two terms that, if left unchallenged, risk reproducing the same colonial hierarchies they claim to overcome.

Because every project is an act of politics and language: deciding what to rebuild, how, and for whom means choosing where — and with whom — to stand.