ComFORT Downtown: On blanket forts, hot chocolate, and the architecture of intimacy.
In November 2012, we turned Edmonton’s sidewalks into living rooms: blanket forts, steaming hot chocolate, and strangers becoming neighbours. ComFORT began with a $500 challenge and a question: what if rest is something we design, together? The result was small, warm, and wildly human - proof that play can be public care. Build your fort; build your city.
Optimism and architecture: lessons from the 2025 Aga Khan Award Winners
Architecture is not neutral. It either enforces systems of control or helps dismantle them. The 2025 Aga Khan Award for Architecture proves that design can be survival in flood-prone Bangladesh, belonging in rural China, memory in historic Esna, joy in Palestine, and dignity in Iran. These projects refuse spectacle and instead offer social infrastructure, rootedness, participation, and justice. In today’s climate of displacement and inequality, they are not just buildings, they are political interventions. At Lemon Papaya, we draw on their lessons to ask: how can every wall, threshold, and gathering space move us closer to liberation?
Imagine living in a world we didn’t have to heal from
What would it mean to live in a world we didn’t always have to heal from? Not because pain disappears but because it is no longer manufactured at scale through inequality, white supremacy, colonization, and systemic violence. This essay asks how we can design spaces that resist harm, nurture belonging, and move us closer to a world where healing is no longer endlessly required.