RIWAQ’s Restoration of Qalandiya’s Historic Center Revitalizes Village and Wins Major Award

The historic center of the Palestinian village of Qalandiya has been restored and renovated by RIWAQ—Centre for Architectural Conservation, a Palestinian nonprofit dedicated to architectural conservation in the West Bank and Gaza. In partnership with entities like UNESCO, the Palestinian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, and Al-Quds University, the project, titled “Qalandiya: The Green Historic Maze,” has won the Holcim Foundation Award for “reviv[ing] a fragile historic village, honoring vernacular architecture, championing community engagement, optimizing ecological rehabilitation, and highlighting adaptive reuse.”1

The project was one of 20 winners worldwide announced for the 2025 Holcim Foundation Awards, which carry a prize of $40,000 and “are among the world’s most significant and generous honors in sustainable architecture,” according to the website of the Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction.

The awards recognize sustainability across all scales. The Foundation determined that “the winning entries, which were required upon entry to be in development, but not complete, provide a modern definition of best practice in sustainable design.”

RIWAQ’s project was further honored by being chosen as one of five Grand Prize winners among the 20 awarded, winning this prize as the project that the jury determined “demonstrated the greatest transformative potential for advancing sustainable construction globally”2 among the winners from the Middle East and North Africa region. Grand Prize winners received an additional $40,000.

“What makes the project so special to my mind is this really delicate balance of working with heritage, working with communities, responding to the difficult political conditions there, and also constantly—not just generating knowledge and sharing knowledge, but using it to move forward,” said May al-Ibrashy, a 2025 jury member.

Qalandiya’s historic center is situated on the western part of the rich agricultural lands of Qalandiya, which are located approximately 11 kilometers north of Jerusalem and 4 kilometers south of Ramallah. It lies within the larger Palestinian governorate of Jerusalem.

Today, Qalandiya is primarily associated with the massive checkpoint that separates Jerusalem from its northern neighborhoods, including Kufr ‘Aqab, al-Ram, and Qalandiya, which were historically always connected to Jerusalem (see Neighborhoods beyond the Wall).

In 1924, Colonial British Mandate authorities established a military airport on the lands of Qalandiya, the Jerusalem International Airport. In 1936, it was renovated by a Zionist and began operating commercial flights. Throughout this period and until 1967, it was the main airport servicing Palestinians and was known as Al-Quds International Airport.

Upon its occupation of East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank in 1967, Israel seized the airport and renamed it Atarot Airport, though its use declined rapidly. In 2000, Israel shut down the airport to commercial use.

Along with the airport, which spans 650 dunums, Israel occupied hundreds more dunums of Qalandiya’s lands in 1967, destroying homes and displacing residents. In 1970, it constructed the Atarot industrial settlement. As a result, the village was divided and suffocated by the grip of settlement and displacement efforts, especially following the construction of the Separation Wall in the early 2000s starting during the Second Intifada, when tight restrictions on mobility between Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank were implemented.

The historic center renovated by RIWAQ is behind the wall in Area B, while the airport and several other Palestinian homes are in Area C, which was the designation of 98 percent of Qalandiya’s village lands in 2012.3 Palestinian locales in Area C receive the fewest municipal services by design, rendering them subject to perpetual crises.4 Indeed, the ghettoization of Qalandiya has resulted in infrastructural collapse and economic strangulation, leading many residents to move to Areas A and B of the West Bank, especially Ramallah, for employment opportunities and basic municipal services.5 Today, Israel is setting out on a new effort to annex 130 dunums of Qalandiya’s lands in Area C, including the airport premises and Palestinian homes, to establish a waste recycling center and a new settlement for Orthodox Jews that would displace tens of Palestinian families.6 Qalandiya’s proximity to the Separation Wall and Israel’s continued annexation of its lands have devastated its ecological and agricultural infrastructure.7

In RIWAQ’s renovation project, Indigenous plants, traditional water management, and local materials were used, thereby preserving historical practices while reviving local biodiversity. Indeed, the historic center of Qalandiya has been transformed into a green space, a source of fresh air for a revitalized community, breaking the area’s extensive concrete horizon.

After removing debris and rubble from the site, RIWAQ found 35 historic buildings in Qalandiya’s historic center.8 The village is also home to al-Huqqiyya Palace, which holds cultural and social significance to the locals, as it used to be the home of the village mukhtar where sulh (conflict resolution) meetings and discussions of local matters were held.9

RIWAQ began the rehabilitation of Qalandiya’s historic center in 2017 with a program of preventive conservation, consolidation of historic buildings, and redefining spaces and boundaries. The vision of the project was to revive the historic center and to dedicate the buildings as premises for small institutions, companies, and creative industries.10 The project was built on an income-generating model; the rental fees were placed into a fund to cover maintenance and restore more buildings, guaranteeing the community’s self-sustainability.11

Notably, the historic center was restored through a participatory approach; the needs and aspirations of the local community were factored into the design process. The project prioritized promoting social cohesion by creating a space where youth, women, children, and families could get together and collaborate.12 Events like “Adventure in the Neighborhood,” involving group games and competitions, are now hosted in the old city, creating community and pumping life into the otherwise desolate space.13 RIWAQ also partners with various organizations to provide tours in the historic center, engaging participants in oral histories and folk tales.14 Indeed, much has come from RIWAQ’s restoration initiative.

Qalandiya is one of 50 historic villages RIWAQ is restoring. In an interview with Kalimat Magazine, Suad Amiry, founder of RIWAQ, shared what distinguishes architectural conservation in Palestine from other places. Beyond the preservation and documentation of Palestinian cultural heritage, the team “realized that maybe in Italy or elsewhere in Europe, renovating historic places is a privilege,” but in Palestine, it should be tied to job creation.15 The economic situation has been suffocating for many Palestinians, especially those living behind the Separation Wall. Preservation of historic architecture may be “rooted in romantic values” in many countries, but here, it is “a dynamic form of enacting change.”16