Ismail Rifaat is an architect and urban planner with extensive international experience in architecture and city planning. He also served as planning expert on two United Nations assignments.

A word from Ismail ~

In 1998 I coined “tychiformation” from the Greek “tychi” meaning “future”, and “forma” meaning “shape” to signify my approach to addressing global affairs as: “shaping the future”. It promotes the peaceful evolution of civil society. In 2002 I created this web site to introduce the approach. More recently, I completed a book that applies the concept of tychiformation to current world conditions. The strategic goal of tychiformation is to “preserve the life of each individual human as long as possible”; thence the title of the book: Planning for Survival.

Threats to survival are classified as “natural”, and “relating to man’s action”. Natural threats include aging and disease, and “hazardous aspects of the natural environment” such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and the bombardment of the planet by meteorites and comets. Threats relating to man’s action are either unintended, such as the degradation of the environment, or deliberate as reflected in terrorist acts and wars driven by what I define as “hazardous aspects of human nature”. Each type of strategic threat to survival identified in my book is addressed.

Compared with prevailing approaches which address symptoms, I probe the roots of problems, investigate opportunities and constraints to addressing the causes of problems, and suggest action to cope with key issues based on analysis. In the process, I address moral, religious and political issues, and cover topics ranging from scientific R&D, to healthcare, population growth, sectarian and national disparities, and human nature. I also discuss the Israeli/Palestinian problem, terrorism, and the war in Iraq, and highlight the criticality of the issues which entail compromising innocent life, and the expenditure of enormous resources towards destructive ends.

I believe that the USA is in a privileged position to lead global planning. However, I indicate that special interests in the US seem to have been leading the world in perilous directions, that unrestrained imperial capitalism contributed to the rise and proliferation of religious radicalism, and that “illicit greed” lies at the root of critical domestic and international problems. Furthermore, it appears to me that the influence of special interests stifles the practice of democracy in the USA to the detriment of American citizens and most of the people of the world. I cite current proposals to address this critical condition.

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