The semester’s two projects revolve around the themes of housing and education.

The Studio’s first project focused on the period of the Modern Movement in Architecture through the work of Michel Écochard (1905-1985) in Lebanon and beyond: how did the architect learn from the masters of the movement, applying or challenging the lessons of his predecessors, especially Le Corbusier? In this first phase the students undertook the analysis of two projects – one educational by Écochard and the other a house by Le Corbusier, covering all aspect of the chosen projects, resulting in “blueprints” explaining the philosophy. The project culminated in an architectural intervention “a Folly” with an architectural syntax that is stemming from the preceding phase, challenging the modern movement’s language, with a new experience and quality of space.
In the second project, students worked on a given virtual site consisting of a public space and a cluster of plots surrounding a “piazza”. They were each assigned a plot to conceive a living/learning space. They dealt with a physical context; solved the architectural problems in relation to the surroundings and the relation to the neighbors. They optimized the architectural answer to contextual parameters, while mastering the architectural language, the functionality, and the structure, following a unique sociological paradigm with a scenario and users that they defined around the theme of “Living/Learning”. The variety of profiles living on the piazza was not stemming from an individual work only. Students were encouraged to work with their neighbors, finding solution of access and openings, or extended voids… all serving the aim of creating a participative neighborhood, for an equal and fair living and learning space.