The Syrian architect Marwa al-Sabouni is the Guest Co-Director of this year’s Brighton Festival and her flagship project The Riwaq on Hove seafront provides a space for social and artistic exchange. Rebuilding is the festival’s theme and the subject of her latest book, Building for Hope – Towards an Architecture of Belonging which explores how cities can be rebuilt after crisis and war. She tells Helen Lewis that architecture has a pivotal role in generating community, not just in devastated cities, but all around the world. Dame Jo da Silva is an engineer at the building firm Arup who specialises in disaster relief. After years spent realising the high designs of architects for everything from airports to bus shelters, she became involved in projects to rebuild communities hit by catastrophes. As urbanisation reaches record levels globally she argues that it’s more important than ever to build in sustainability and resilience. The historian Jessie Childs focuses her story of th...