Riyad Joucka

Truth is, most homes today are designed by developers for the market and not for the people that will live in them.

Modularity became a tool for urgent rebuilding, and it worked fast, but often at the cost of character.

What if the places we lived in could truly reflect who we are, and not just what's fastest or cheapest to build?

This isn't about everyone designing their own house.

It's about rethinking how homes are created in the first place.

We've all seen rows of homes so alike, you can only tell them apart by the color of the car parked outside.

And it's designed for efficiency, not identity.

Truth is, most homes today are designed by developers for the market and not for the people that will live in them.

These template-driven systems leave little room to innovate or think about form or function.

But this reliance on standardization isn't new.

Historically, modular systems were not designed to maximize profit.

After World War II, when entire cities across Europe were flattened, there were a way to get people back under roofs quickly.

Prefabs, kits of parts, temporary housing.

Across the world, modularity became a tool for urgent rebuilding, and it worked fast, but often at the cost of character.

Sadly, today, once again, architecture and heritage are being erased.

In places like Gaza, in Sudan, in Ukraine, what disappears isn't just people and buildings.

It's memory, belonging, culture.

I'm not here with a simple fix.

What I'm saying is we must rebuild, but we need to rebuild with identity in mind.

My name is Riyad Jukka, I'm an architect based in Dubai, where I run a practice called Meme, the Middle East Architecture Network.