UCL The Bartlett School of Architecture in London
09 Feb 2026, 18:30 – 20:00
Christopher Ingold Auditorium (XLG2)
22 Gordon Street, London
What if a school begins where displacement gathers?
In this seminar, DAAR (Decolonizing Architecture Art Research) founders, Sandi Hilal and Alessandro Petti, explore how practices of collective learning become forms of re-existence – pedagogical and political – in the face of genocide and erasure.
Over two decades of work across sites of exile and control, DAAR’s long-term projects are shaped by displacement and collective knowledge: the UNRWA Girls’ School (Shu’fat) refugee camp in Jerusalem and Campus in Camps (Dheisheh) refugee camp in Bethlehem, which continues to resist disappearance; a travelling Tree School rooted in shared shade; and the Decolonizing Architecture Advanced Studies programme (DAAS) unfolding between Sharjah, Cairo and Stockholm.
Together, they reveal how learning does not emerge despite displacement but through it, carried by those who gather, reflect and act amid uncertainty. Pedagogy and architecture merge as shared acts of grounding, holding and refusing disappearance.
At a time when entire communities are targeted for elimination, learning environments can become places where forms of re-existence are rehearsed and sustained. They become spaces where learning is inseparable from political commitment, where pedagogy becomes a ground for refusing erasure, and where architecture is reclaimed as an ethical and situated practice.
With responses from Lobna Al-Sana and chaired by Mohamad Hafeda.
This event is part of the flagship CRUNCH Series at the Bartlett School of Architecture.