Yaquq village. 

Reviving a Palestinian Architectural Memory
2023. Architecture Umeå School of Architecture

Tutor
Amalia Katopodis(Cordinator), Prof. Robert Mull & Sangram Shirke

This project is a personal and architectural journey to Yaquq, a Palestinian village located in the mountains of eastern Lower Galilee near Tiberias — and the place where my family originates.













Once a vibrant community, Yaquq was depopulated and destroyed during the 1948 Nakba. Today, only stone rubble, a lone palm tree, and a few olive trees remain to mark the memory of a village erased.






Rubble on the village site. View from the northwest. Photo by Garo Nalbandian. May 1987.

As part of my fourth-year studies at Umeå School of Architecture, I set out to reconstruct Yaquq’s memory through spatial storytelling, archival mapping, and architectural speculation. By tracing oral histories, Ottoman and British maps, and archaeological remnants, the project aims to reimagine a living memory of the village — not merely as ruins or loss, but as a site of cultural resilience and identity.








  The work interrogates what it means to carry a place within you after its physical destruction, and how architecture can serve as a vessel for resistance, remembrance, and return. 


The project merges historical research with contemporary design tools to propose an architectural revival that honors the everyday life, material culture, and spatial character of Yaquq before 1948.





















Ultimately, this is not just a reconstruction — it’s a reclaiming.