conceptual ring platform floating near gaza sets up a domino of all countries' pavilions

‘Our common home’: Domino project calls for a space for peace

Multidisciplinary Studio Nab, led by Nicolas Abdelkader, proposes Domino, a symbolic three-kilometer circumference ring located north of Gaza. Situated near the Erez checkpoint on the border with Israel, 90 kilometers from Jerusalem, the circular platform sets up pavilions for all countries that house spaces for commemoration, diplomacy, cultural discovery, language learning. A footbridge drawn from the border connects the structure to the land. The concept calls for a space for peace, dialogue, and mutual discovery, to organize fraternal collaboration between peoples and promote the peaceful resolution of conflicts.

‘A peace memorial proposing the reconstruction of housing for Gazans and a space for diplomacy and cultural discovery. A collaborative concept, financed by the international community where each nation puts its contribution to the building, for the common good. For a common home,’ shares the designer.

198 flags for all nations, all linked and interdependent | all images courtesy of Studio Nab

Nab’s Domino aims to organize collaboration between peoples

‘All interdependent and interconnected, we are all one. Peoples are pillars, like dominoes supporting the same home, our common home, the Earth. When a domino falls, a nation falls, people fall, and we all fall in an inexorable chain reaction. The domino effect. The consequences vary from one individual to another, but we all have something to lose, and the poorest and most disadvantaged among us are always on the front line. The wars that disfigure the world today and the quest for power and domination that accompanies them, are a real scourge for all forms of life on Earth. Pride, predation, and selfishness provoke tensions and struggles that shatter our sense of brotherhood. Every conflict situation, as in the Middle East, Ukraine, Haiti, and Sudan, brings in its wake the suffering of millions of people — men, women, brothers, sisters, children, the elderly, and entire communities. These needless massacres and appalling ruins only serve to heighten the sense of generalized fear and escalating conflict; the domino effect,’ comments Studio Nab’s Nicolas Abdelkader.

Domino is a space for peace, dialogue, and mutual discovery, promoting peaceful resolution of conflicts

And continues, ‘Weighting, justice, human rights, and negotiation should become the only objectives to be achieved, the use of force, hostility, violence, and belligerence should be banished from our existence. Yet we are not strangers to one another, nor are we superior to one another, and we can no longer ignore one another, for we are all seated at the same table, that of humanity. It has become urgent to recognize the value of the peoples of each nation in order to build a bridge between beings and create an unshakeable pact of brotherhood for all present and future generations. Teaching people to live in peace, promoting the peaceful resolution of conflicts, and developing friendly relations between nations — these should be the top priorities of the international community and the individuals responsible for the greatest number, instead of the quest for power and the arming of nations. War is the denial of all rights, putting down weapons, means showing forgiveness, clemency, and generosity, this should be the objective to achieve. Stemming the phenomenon of escalation of conflicts means stopping the attack on human rights and in particular violence against the poorest. Organizing fraternal collaboration between peoples means facilitating coexistence between nations by giving everyone, without exception, a place to shine, a place to express themselves, and a real megaphone. It means creating a new system of international life that is stable, enviable, and sustainable. Promoting the cultural and ethnic richness of each people means getting to know the other, means no longer being afraid of them, means facilitating her discovery so that we can understand and accept our differences. Accelerating economic and social progress means being able to establish a system of international solidarity, it is marking a founding step in the development of mankind, it is looking towards a serene future. To aspire to the dignity of life, to freedom, to the hope of concord and peace, is to capture the highest in human wisdom, for grasp his sacred nature. To honor the voices of the living and the dead, it’s making them ours. It’s paying tribute to us.’

pavilions standing on the Mediterranean Sea house spaces for commemoration, diplomacy, cultural discovery