Failed Architecture

Since starting to publish almost 15 years ago, a lot has changed. Various economic crises, the climate crisis, deepening social divisions. We've had a look through the archive and put together some of our favourites that reflect some of these issues. failedarchitecture.com/failed-archite…

Built on the site of a former NATO compound, the Netherland’s most (in)famous asylum seeker centre Ter Apelervenen is caught up in a centuries’ old hinterland dynamic in which infrastructures of war, asylum and confinement remain largely unseen @FailedArch buff.ly/nHt0q5s

An unpacking of migration policies and border management in the US-Mexico border and Europe. With @_gesanchez , @AhlamChemlali , @klaasvandijken and Luigi Achilli, featuring sounds by José Manuel Flores Produced by @FailedArch, written & narrated by me failedarchitecture.com/podcast/border…

Bhasan Char was promoted by the Bangladeshi government as a safe haven for the Rohingya, but it has instead become a striking display of authoritarian excess and refugee containment. failedarchitecture.com/bangladeshs-is…

"Bhasan Char is a massive warehouse for what the state perceives as a surplus population: refugees deemed burdensome and disposable." Read "Bangladesh’s Island Warehouse for Rohingya Refugees" by Shafiur Rahman on our site.

"A few months prior to the short-lived ceasefire agreement in January 2025, a PDF produced by the nation-state spread across the internet. This PDF may well be considered an imperial weapon in and of itself," writes Shane Reiner-Roth of Israel's plans for Gaza.

Part of our series Everywhere Walls, Borders, Prisons. Catch up here: failedarchitecture.com/category/every…

Under Indian militarization, the Kashmir Valley is dotted with bunkers. Sabahat Ali Wani argues that the bunker – traditionally a form of defensive architecture – serves as the military’s offensive device of surveillance. failedarchitecture.com/a-bunkered-land

A Bunkered Land: "The soldier's body is the bunker’s extended limb, functioning much like its rotating armed camera." New piece by Sabahat Ali Wani on surveillance bunkers and the militarization of Kashmir. Link below.

“How do you arrange your family needs and commitments around an immobile curfew, and what happens when the realities of everyday life contradict the rules of the state?” Kitya Mark follows the story of Ibz, an asylum seeker in the UK forced to wear an electronic ankle monitor.

Powerful piece by E. Paris Whitfield: failedarchitecture.com/new-york-state…

Reiner-Roth places the AI-generated images that dominate the PDF within a lineage of colonial urban planning: "Early 20th century agricultural fields, midcentury highways, and early 21st century skyscrapers come together to form a single gelatinous whole." failedarchitecture.com/an-artificial-…

The second article in our series, “Everywhere Walls, Borders, Prisons.” In case you missed it, read the first — E Paris Whitfield's essay on the projects to prisons pipeline — here: failedarchitecture.com/new-york-state…

Demonstrating the ankle monitor’s use as an extension of the carceral state into the city, Mark describes a contemporary urban landscape of invisible barriers, marked by the absence of those who are barred from the social life of the city. failedarchitecture.com/a-prison-aroun…

This essay by E. Paris Whitfield marks the launch of our special series on the global regime of enclosure and incarceration, titled "Everywhere Walls, Borders, Prisons." Stay tuned as we roll out the rest this year by subscribing to our newsletter. stats.sender.net/forms/e09yya/v…

"The housing projects' brick buildings are defined by what they keep in. Within the 30-foot walls, like prisons, the projects conceal a slow death, keeping the Black and Brown American body in bondage." failedarchitecture.com/new-york-state…

From their spatial controls down to their material finishes, NYCHA public housing and NY state prisons bear a familial likeness. Having lived in both, E. Paris Whitfield elucidates the way the city’s underfunded public housing system socializes tenants into the prison system.

We're still *just* short of our fundraising goal of €850/month. Meeting this goal will allow us to stay afloat and raise our writers' fee. If we exceed it, we'll have a small budget to do more Situations in the future. Please consider donating: failedarchitecture.com/donate/

We just published a reflection on the in-person events we've done over the years. If you like what we do IRL and online, please consider supporting us in the final days of our fundraising campaign. failedarchitecture.com/failed-archite…