Living-Together: Rethinking Shared Space in Divided Cities
Support Independent Research
I’m conducting a self-funded PhD that explores how spatial design can help people live together in divided, post-conflict cities like Belfast and Homs.
Every contribution via Ko-fi helps sustain this independent research — from on-the-ground fieldwork to visual mapping, writing, and public sharing of insights.
In return, you’ll receive:
• Monthly updates on research progress
• Notifications of my LinkedIn reflection series
• A full eBook compilation when the series concludes
• A signed thank-you letter
• And an invitation upon completion of the PhD
Every contribution sustains this independent effort — and helps make space for overlooked voices in divided cities.
About the Research
From Shared Space to Living-Together is a self-funded PhD research project that explores how spatial design can foster coexistence in post-conflict divided cities. Starting with fieldwork in Belfast and extending to the war-torn city of Homs, the project examines how people continue to live together — or apart — in contexts of deep division.
This work moves beyond the idea of shared space as a neutral tool, and instead develops the concept of “Living-Together” as a condition shaped by spatial strategies, ethical choices, and architectural design. Through field research, archival analysis, visual mapping, and spatial storytelling, the project aims to rethink how urban environments can support meaningful forms of coexistence.
Trajectory
Over the course of five years, the research unfolds across six phases
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Groundwork in Belfast through fieldwork, interviews, and collaboration with local architects
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Literature review and re-positioning following critical feedback
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Theoretical and methodological refinement
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Empirical consolidation in Belfast
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A comparative extension to Homs, Syria
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Synthesis into an urban atlas and dissertation
Background & Past Work
Mostar: Foundations of a Research Trajectory
Before initiating my PhD, I conducted extensive socio-spatial analysis in the post-war city of Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina. This work focused on understanding how the city evolved over time, integrating different spatial strategies with each new administration to manage group divisions through patterns of coexistence and separation.
Ethnographic research and spatial analysis of two well-known locations in Mostar where communities intersect revealed how spatial settings contribute to sustaining a pattern of Living-Together — one marked by cautious interaction, controlled encounters, and selective avoidance.
This early research laid the conceptual and methodological groundwork for my current focus on spatial strategies for Living-Together in divided cities.
Belfast
Research in Progress
Articles in Progress
The Spatial Articulation of Differences
This article explores the New Lodge neighborhood in Belfast known for its Catholic population and interfaces with the neighboring protestant areas. By examining three areas characterized by distinct spatial forms and practices related to the socio-spatial division, the article shows visually how differences are spatially articulated and argues that space represents an active agent in inter-communal relationship in post- “armed” conflict Belfast.
Drawing from fieldwork conducted in July 2023, the study reveals that space can either facilitate the accommodation of differences or, conversely, contribute to the promotion of exclusive identities, leading to heightened tensions and further separation between Irish Catholics and English Protestants communities.
Shared Space and the Limits of Contact
This article critically examines the concept of shared space as applied in post-conflict Belfast, where urban design has been used as a policy tool to foster reconciliation and coexistence between historically divided communities. Drawing from contact theory, planners and policymakers have sought to produce proximity through spatial interventions — from large-scale regeneration projects to institution-led developments. Yet, as this article argues, these flagship initiatives often fall short of their inclusive aspirations, reinforcing existing inequalities or privileging symbolic neutrality over lived inclusion.
Through a closer examination of more modest, service-oriented facilities the article highlights how everyday architecture and local sites of shared need create space for cautious, self-directed interaction. These environments are not neutral but negotiated. The article introduces the concept of the “negotiated threshold” to describe settings in which coexistence emerges not through spectacle, but through repetition, routine, and access.