Sign up to our newsletter

Sign up to our newsletter for all the latest new and updates.

Become a member

Membership of Type allows unlimited access to our online library. Join to support new research and writing on the design of the built environment.

You can read more about membership here.

Become a member

Already a member? Login to your account to avail of unlimited downloads.

Fragmented territories: the spatial infrastructures of occupation

Shelly Rourke
22/1/2024

Present Tense

Navigating through the West Bank, the omnipresence of military checkpoints and the daily challenges faced by Palestinians under occupation are laid bare. This article offers an intimate exploration of the physical and psychological landscapes shaped by decades of conflict, inviting readers to witness a world where freedom of movement is a luxury and the echoes of history resonate in every street.

The military watchtowers which survey Aida Refugee Camp. Image credit: Shelly Rourke

Aida is surrounded by a nine-metre-tall wall made of precast panels that encircle and spatially confine the community. Under the vigilant gaze of the Israeli military, watchtowers punctuate at irregular intervals along the wall of occupation and control, overseeing the 6,000 refugees, displaced since the Al Nabka (the catastrophe) of 1948.

Prior to entering the West Bank, one cannot ignore the large red warning signs indicating that entrance by Israelis is dangerous and forbidden. Passing through the checkpoints, barrels of machine guns are pointed directly at passing buses, ready to fire at any unexpected occurrence. Multiple soldiers in their 20s hover around the gated barriers and concrete pods, scrutinising the documentation of the people passing through.  

Growing up singing Christmas carols, I became familiar with Bethlehem, only to realise that it is not just a mystical place existing solely in religious stories but a real city. The people living here are subject to a dystopian reality, living under brutal occupation. They are observed by snipers, hindered by military checkpoints restricting their movement, and surrounded by the constant sounds of gunshots, keeping them in a perpetual state of fear. Facial recognition cameras subject them to discrimination, while AI-controlled machine guns ensure pinpoint accuracy if fired upon [1].

In August 2023, I arrived in Bethlehem, West Bank, to participate in an international camp at the Lagee Centre in Aida Refugee Camp. Aida is surrounded by a nine-metre-tall wall made of precast panels that encircle and spatially confine the community. Under the vigilant gaze of the Israeli military, watchtowers punctuate at irregular intervals along the wall of occupation and control, overseeing the 6,000 refugees, displaced since the Al Nabka (the catastrophe) of 1948. Ask any child in Aida about their origin, and they will instantly name their grandparents' townlands, showing keys that no longer unlock any door. Following the initial tents of the 1950s, their grandparents were given a 7m² plot of land on which they built their home. As families expanded, each generation added a new floor. Reinforced steel bars pierce the rooftops, inviting the next generation to build upon them, resulting in a densely populated 0.5km².

Streets in Aida Refugee Camp (Image credit: Shelly Rourke)

Even in the Palestinians' places of refuge, the Israeli military dictates harsh living conditions. Aida is often used for military training exercises, and under the cover of darkness, they forcibly enter Palestinian homes, arresting and abducting blindfolded youths for interrogation [2]. From a distance, tear gas canisters are fired into the camp, and remnants litter the streets, playgrounds, and soccer pitches of Aida. The lingering toxic fumes persist for days, ruining clothes and exacerbating respiratory illnesses. Artists repurpose discarded metal into jewellery for tourists, who can narrate stories of visiting the most tear-gassed place in the world. Here, Palestinians are subject to the overpowering presence of the Israeli military occupation which oversees every aspect of their daily life.

What remains of the West Bank is further gobbled up and reshaped by illegal Israeli settlements, continuously expanding and threatening existing Palestinian communities in contravention of the Oslo Accords. These settlements are connected by segregationist roads inaccessible to Palestinians, further isolating them and marking them as ‘other’ in the mindset of occupation. Thousand-year-old olive trees are uprooted and placed near Israeli settlements to create an appearance of historical continuity. Contrary to the spacious Israeli settlements, with hundreds of flags fluttering, Palestinian housing is densely packed, with water towers on roofs – another signifier of a population controlled by others. Water infrastructure is regulated by Israeli forces, unpredictable, and necessitating storage for a consistent supply.  

West Bank Checkpoint (Image credit: Shelly Rourke)

Hundreds of checkpoints permeate the West Bank, and sudden roadblocks imposed by the Israeli military paralyze movement at will. This military occupation distorts distances, compelling people to wait at road gates, borders, and checkpoints for permissions to be granted. Soldiers interrogate Palestinians about their origins while they themselves stand on confiscated, occupied land. Complex routes circumnavigate Jewish settlements and Jerusalem’s suburbs, elongating journeys unnecessarily and confusing the region's geography. Palestinians cannot guarantee arrival times, as these are subject to the soldiers' mood at checkpoints, and disturbances in northern cities such as Jenin can affect movement in the south. Al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam's third most-holy site, is a mere 7km from Aida Refugee Camp, yet accessing it without an unattainable permit brands one a criminal. Along routes between various West Bank cities, Israeli settlers operate diggers and bulldozers, disfiguring the landscape Palestinians once carefully tended to.

Restrictive planning laws deny Palestinians the right to construct on their own land, gradually forcing them out of their communities. This became evident in Beit Eskaria, a village between Bethlehem and Hebron, where settlements strategically perch on hilltops, ominously overseeing Beit Eskaria below. In Israel, Arabic is no longer the official language [3] and navigating the legal system without Hebrew exacerbates the complexities of the exclusionary planning laws. In Beit Eskaria, Israel demolished thirty-five new homes and a mosque with no warning, making it difficult for the community to sustain itself for future generations. All that remains are the remnants of the former building projects, serving as a gentle reminder that unlawful construction is a futile endeavour.

Cities like Jenin and Nablus defy military rule, and this results in every wall being adorned with countless images of male martyrs. In Jenin, roads have been purposefully destroyed by the Israeli Military, disrupting infrastructure, extending the time taken to undertake everyday activities whilst strategically impeding ambulances from reaching injured victims. A new cemetery, established on a recently flattened vast wasteland, has soil that is speckled with coloured rubbish and glass. Family members and friends sit beside fresh mounds, grieving for the young lives lost. Parents spoke of receiving the exam results of their murdered teenagers on the day of their funeral.

Jenin Graveyard (Image credit: Shelly Rourke)

Returning to Israel (referred to by Palestinians as ’48), from Bethlehem, necessitates passing through ‘Checkpoint 300’. Depending on the time of day, the line may be dense with Palestinians holding permits to work in Israel. Once again, the Israeli military subjects them to waiting in spaces resembling farmyard milking stalls, tightly packed, scrutinizing their identity cards at a sluggish pace, and degrading them at every possible opportunity. Before the turnstiles, signs in Arabic are mounted on the walls, emphasising that the checkpoint was built for them, and it was their responsibility to maintain its cleanliness. Emerging on the other side, an advertisement announces that the metropolitan city of Tel Aviv is just a short one-hour distance away. Passing through, I mounted the bus to Jerusalem only to be hit with a wave of emotion. I felt as though what I stepped out of is a life under brutal occupation and it so far removed from the free reality we live in. For the people of Aida, it is the only reality that perhaps they will only ever know. I had the choice to leave.

At the airports departure gates, the questioning fluctuated between the serious and the absurd, asking had you visited Bethlehem, Jenin, Nablus, and Hebron in the West Bank, knowing that a slip of the tongue would deny a chance of ever returning. The Israelis are the masters of the house and for now they determine everything.

Hundreds of checkpoints permeate the West Bank, and sudden roadblocks imposed by the Israeli military paralyze movement at will. This military occupation distorts distances, compelling people to wait at road gates, borders, and checkpoints for permissions to be granted.

Present Tense is an article series aimed at uncovering perspectives and opinions from experts in their respective fields on the key issues/opportunities facing Ireland's built environment. For all enquiries and potential contributors, please contact ciaran.brady@type.ie.

Present Tense is supported by the Arts Council through the Arts Grant Funding Award 2024.

References

1. R. Min, ‘AI-Powered Guns Being Deployed by the Israeli Army in the West Bank’ Euronews, [website] 2022, https://www.euronews.com/next/2022/10/17/israel-deploys-ai-powered-robot-guns-that-can-track-targets-in-the-west-bank

2. ‘Aida Camp | UNRWA’ Aida Camp, [website] https://www.unrwa.org/where-we-work/west-bank/aida-camp

3. M. Berger, ‘Israel’s Hugely Controversial “Nation-State” Law, Explained’ Vox, [website] 2018, https://www.vox.com/world/2018/7/31/17623978/israel-jewish-nation-state-law-bill-explained-apartheid-netanyahu-democracy

Contributors

Shelly Rourke

Shelly Rourke is an architect, who has a special interest in reimagining Irelands existing villages. Shelly believes that the existing housing stock on the main streets of Ireland’s towns can encourage sustainable living while also re-invigorating life back into these centres. Shelly also runs her own e-commerce gifting platform that specialises in artisan baked goods.

Related articles

The (un)shared burden of local infrastructure

Seán O'Neill McPartlin
Present Tense
Seán O'Neill McPartlin
Ciarán Brady

Ireland is one of the most expensive places in Europe to build a home. Materials and labor have been outpacing inflation since the 1990s. Irish apartments are now subject to rules so strict that they’re the second most expensive in Europe [1] to construct. On top of these high construction costs, there's another factor weighing on prices: the cost of basic infrastructure – water pipes, roads, community parks – that new residents end up footing. I want to talk about how spreading the costs more fairly could benefit everyone, not just newcomers.

Historically, local authorities used to pay for infrastructure through a combination of national grants, commercial rates, and domestic rates, which had been in place for decades. In 1978, though, the Local Government (Financial Provisions) Act removed domestic rates. That decision effectively ended the system where water and other utilities were funded by the public as a whole. Today, first-time buyers and renters shoulder a heavier share of the bill.

Take water connections as an example. Uisce Éireann manages and maintains Ireland’s water infrastructure and is overseen by the Commission for the Regulation of Utilities. In principle, it receives the bulk of its budget from central government. However, under the Planning and Development Act 2000, new developments also pay a Section 48 levy to local authorities and a separate water connection charge to Uisce Éireann itself. Of the agency's total funding in 2024, about €72 million [2] came directly from new domestic connections. And much of these charges are passed onto first-time buyers and renters.

The most recent iteration of Uisce Éireann charges come from the 'Shared Quotable Rebate' (SQR) system. It was introduced to address the ‘first mover disadvantage’, where a developer faced with the cost of building water infrastructure is deterred by the high upfront cost. The SQR tries to fix that by offering partial rebates to the initial investor if later developers connect to the same infrastructure. Unfortunately, it does so by shouldering the first mover with significant upfront costs.

Increasing the upfront cost of delivering homes decreases housing supply by discouraging investment in housing, a point firmly made by the Report of the Housing Commission. It makes investment in housing riskier than it already is and that is something Ireland cannot afford. The Department of Finance [3] says that to deliver 50,000 homes a year, approximately €16.9 billion would be required from private capital sources. Making that investment riskier by increasing the upfront cost will inevitably result in fewer homes.

Housing Construction. Image Credit: Laura Hutton/RollingNews.ie

Underpinning all of this is a question of fairness: why should people who don’t yet own a home pay more for water or roads than those who have lived in the area for decades? A more promising path is to spread these essential costs across all residents through local property taxes, much as local authorities did before 1978 through domestic rates. Reintroducing that broader tax base doesn’t just solve a moral dilemma; it also supports a more robust approach to financing critical infrastructure.

When the burden of infrastructure is shared, builders can invest more confidently in new homes. That means more projects can move forward, and the houses or apartments that get built are more affordable than they would be under the current system. Lower home prices, in turn, make it easier for first-time buyers to enter the market.

Such a shift also creates a better incentive structure for local authorities and residents. With a broader property tax base, local governments can collect predictable and reliable revenues from both existing and newly built homes. They would have a stronger reason to champion growth in their communities – because every new project would predictably contribute to the overall fiscal health of the community. Rather than relying on upfront fees which slow down development, property tax revenues grow as developments fill up. Revenues can then be reinvested in better roads, public spaces, and social services, further enhancing the area’s appeal and attracting more residents and businesses, creating a win-win for local residents and newcomers.

Sharing the costs of infrastructure across all taxpayers isn’t just about fairness (although it is about that). It is about making the incentives of development align toward shared prosperity. The payoff is a virtuous cycle in which everyone – newcomers and existing residents alike – benefits from a healthier housing market and a better-resourced public realm.

17/3/2025
Present Tense

In the midst of the housing crisis, Seán O'Neill McPartlin discusses the increasing inequality in how we fund infrastructure, and the need to share this burden to incentivise new development.

Read

Transparency in public works

Ken Foxe
Present Tense
Ken Foxe
Ciarán Brady

It is not quite as famous as Murphy’s law but in Ireland Parkinson’s Law of Triviality might be the one we should pay closer heed to. This ‘law’ – named after the famous historian Cyril Northcote Parkinson – observes the human weakness for getting caught up in trivial details at the expense of the bigger picture.

To illustrate his case, Parkinson put forward an imagined committee in charge of developing a nuclear reactor. This committee then spent as much time worrying about what material to use for the staff bicycle shed as other critical elements of the project. People sometimes refer to the ‘law’ as ‘bike-shedding’ – a term which has taken on a whole new meaning in the vocabulary of Ireland over the past six months.

Last July, I submitted a Freedom of Information request to the Office of Public Works seeking details of how much had been spent on a new bicycle shelter for Leinster House. It was one of hundreds of such information requests that I submit each year to a whole range of public bodies including government departments, local authorities, hospitals, and state agencies. That particular Sunday, I wrote a story – just 435 words in length – sent it to the national newspapers, and got ready to enjoy the rest of the day. Unwittingly, I had just thrown a hand grenade into the court of public opinion.

The €336,000 cost of the project was described as ‘inexplicable and inexcusable’ by Taoiseach Simon Harris and became a meme on social media. It was dissected at the Public Accounts Committee, raised in general election debates, covered by the BBC and The Guardian, and became a touchstone for public anger over spending of taxpayer money.

Yet, in the greater scheme of things – it was a miniscule project, loose change when set against for example the €2 billion-plus cost of the National Children’s Hospital. What it did carry though was resonance and meaning. The cost of the Children’s Hospital, whether it eventually ends up being €2.2 billion, €2.3 billion, or €2.4 billion can be a little too abstract. Every extra €100 million that gets added to the bill would build nearly 300 Leinster House bicycle sheds, but that’s not so easy to quantify mentally.

A €336,000 bicycle shelter though? That carries everyday meaning. It’s the price of building a house or thereabouts. When we think about a sum of money like that, it’s tangible – we all know what we could do with it if we had it. But when we think about €100 million, what would that buy us and what exactly does it look like? How does a lay person – or indeed a journalist – tell the difference between two major projects, both costing the same amount of money? Which one of them was too expensive? And which one was executed to near perfection and achieved maximum value for money for the taxpayer?

There was a certain bitter irony in the bicycle shelter story, too.

New National Children's Hospital. Image credit: RTÉ

A few years ago, I spent months working on a documentary with RTÉ Investigates and reporter Paul Murphy about the operations of the Office of Public Works. The programme highlighted a series of OPW projects: cases where land was purchased, or leases were signed at a sometimes-tremendous loss to the taxpayer. This included the €30 million purchase of the still-idle Thornton Hall in North Dublin for development of a ‘super-prison’. The programme featured a lengthy contribution from Allen Morgan, a retired valuer from the OPW, who courageously went public about his experiences working in the public sector.

He and a colleague had once prepared what was known as the ‘five-case review’, selecting a few cases (or basket cases) from the annals of the OPW. ‘We were just asked for examples,’ Morgan said, ‘We didn’t think there was much point in giving twenty [cases] and we certainly could have.’ Yet the programme, despite airing on primetime TV, did not garner a fraction of the attention that the much simpler story on a bicycle shelter in Leinster House did. And maybe the word ‘simple’ is what is key.

It is so much harder to get to grips with these larger projects, with their complexity and the often-enormous sums of money involved. In the wake of the bicycle shelter story, there was considerable sound and fury from the public, the political sphere, and the public sector. There were promises that this would not happen again but how likely is that really?

For any long-time observer or reporter on Irish society, these stories crop up as steady as a metronome. They follow a similar pattern: revelation, outrage, a vow of reform, before being forgotten. Direct accountability is almost always absent. PPARS, e-voting machines, the FÁS Science Challenge programme, the Kilkenny flood relief scheme; there have been so many it becomes hard to remember. But if lessons are being learned, what are those lessons?  Is it a Department of Infrastructure as has been suggested by the Taoiseach Simon Harris?

If it is the answer, it is hard to find a single person in public service and procurement who agrees. A recent headline in The Irish Times sums up the conundrum we all face when it comes to public spending, most especially mega-projects. A rail spur to connect Navan to the Western Commuter line is now expected to cost €3 billion, according to National Transport Authority forecasts. It will comprise forty kilometres of new track running through predominantly agricultural land and the development of three new stations on the route. As a project, it ticks so many boxes – reducing congestion, reducing car dependence, and cutting greenhouse gas emissions. But how do we assess its cost? Is the €3 billion estimate too high or too low? How long should the project take and how long will it take?

More transparency around these projects would help. But more than that, we need a better system of communicating the development of public infrastructure; experts in the field – architects, planners, and engineers – using social media and the media to explain the nuances and complexities. There is a glaring knowledge gap in how these projects are funded and developed. And until that gap is filled, it remains extremely difficult to hold public bodies to account for how they are executed.

20/1/2025
Present Tense

In this article, Ken Foxe recalls his role in exposing the series of controversies surrounding public works spending, the opaque nature of procurement, and what the state can do to better communicate the nature of these developments.

Read

Polykatoikia balconies: spatial inequities in migratory movements

Shelly Rourke
Present Tense
Shelly Rourke
Ciarán Brady

In 2015, an estimated one million people entered Europe in search of a better life [1]. Driven by conflict and hardship in regions across Africa and the Middle East, refugees and migrants began establishing migratory routes, with many first arriving in southern European cities like Athens. I visited Athens in October 2015, when borders were still open, and the impact of the influx was palpable. Migrants gathered in public spaces across the city, waiting for the opportunity to continue northward. Nearly a decade later, Dublin has emerged as one of their chosen destinations.

Polykatoikia balconies stretch over Athens. Image credit: Yiorgis Yerolymbos

Smog regularly shrouds the identity of the city of Athens and, like the negated identity of the city, the migrant’s individualism is hidden within the general term of ‘refugee’ or ‘migrant’. Like migrants in Dublin, they are an overlooked presence in society. The vast numbers that appropriate the streets reach a saturation point, and their excessive visibility normalises their vulnerability; their neglected state goes unnoticed.

The urban fabric of Athens is shaped by the polykatoikia, a residential typology that forms a homogenous concrete landscape symbolising structure and order. The ground floors of these buildings, often housing commercial shops, typically extend out toward the street, with storefronts showcasing goods to entice both locals and tourists. However, amid Greece's economic recession many of these commercial units were left vacant, creating spaces that had relinquished their original purpose, with residential space occupied above.

In Dublin, the inverse is present – streets become inhabited, and homes fall to ruin. Buildings lie dormant, shops remain shuttered, and migrants occupy the space outside in public parks, neglected street corners, and undercrofts between city blocks. Deprived of formal spaces, they adapt – carving out niches within these leftover spaces. Here, new uses arise, as migrants imprint a new meaning onto these areas, illustrating de Certeau’s notion of space defined “by its users, not by its makers” [2]. These urban inversions reveal social functions, and the inequalities, embedded within the city’s structure.

One can observe the migrant to be trapped, both literally and metaphorically, somewhere between their homeland and their future home, belonging to neither. For many, Athens is but a transitory stop en route to final destinations like Dublin. In both cities, the streets become waiting rooms, as migrants tend to slip into the interstitial spaces clustering together where the city is void of life. Since Covid, city centre occupation has been cast aside by Athenian and Dubliner, in favour of the suburbs and a working-from-home culture. This exodus has created ambiguous spaces that “belong to everybody and nobody” [3], allowing for alternative forms of occupation by those without other options. These spaces of leisure, such as city squares or pedestrian zones designed for strolling, dining, and sightseeing, juxtapose with migrants’ makeshift domestic activities – sleeping in public parks, bathing at public fountains, or scavenging for food. Migrants, like discarded objects, can become “matter out of place” [4], and in their new context they are overlooked because their new identity has yet to be defined. These “waiting rooms” underscore the migrants' vulnerability and the visible yet unnoticed aspect of their existence.

Laundry on a polykatoikia facade. Image credit: Shelly Rourke

In both Dublin and Athens, everyday life subtly reveals the social contrasts shaping these cities. Simple acts like airing laundry highlight the divisions within society. In more affluent areas of Athens and Dublin, laundry retracts internally, as some regard the obtrusive display of laundry as a marker of poverty and disorder. In the more affluent areas of Athens, the balcony is no longer associated with domestic chores but with leisure. The allocation of additional space internally and economic provision of dryers allows the task to be internalised. In contrast, the polykatoikia facades serve as supports for drying racks, with undergarments displayed unashamedly beside household linens, giving glimpses of the inhabitants’ lives. The facades of the polykatoikia recede, drawing focus to the laundry and blurring the boundary between public and private realms.

For migrants, the technique of laundry is radically transformed, driven by their context and estranged from their origin. The lack of resources and mechanisms to launder obliges the migrant to forsake the clothes they choose so carefully for their journey. Their acceptance of donated clothing is an initial signifier of their acceptance, whether willing or not, of a new social identity in their host country. Once they find a stabilising presence, their clothes become suspended on incongruous objects that once restricted movement – such as chain-link fences. Like the migrant’s identity which has been altered, the chain-link fence is read anew, and hints at their creativity in repurposing their context.

Whether the clothes are draped over a fence, or hung on balconies of the polykatoikia balconies, the smoggy air of Athens knows no boundaries and it subjects the migrant, the local, and the tourist to the same atmospheric conditions – creating an invisible platform of equivalence, curbing any difference previously uncovered through the indexical system of laundry. In Dublin, the same conditions must also emerge.

18/11/2024
Present Tense

In this article, Shelly Rourke explores migratory patterns of movement and inhabitation, through reflection on both Athens and Dublin, and the inequalities inherent within these patterns – inequalities of both social displacement and of the structures repurposed to allow a modicum of normality in people's daily lives.

Read

Updates

Website by Good as Gold.