Life in Lebanon has never been more difficult since the country’s independence in 1943. Throughout the many internally and/or externally instigated wars and hardships that the Lebanese population had to survive, life continued at times under security threats, political uncertainty, economic instability, or infrastructural failure. However, no previous period matches the current situation where all of these constraints have coalesced and were exacerbated by the explosion in the port of Beirut on the 4th of August, 2020, which devastated the city and extended its repercussions on the country as a whole.
In addition, The Lebanese, like the rest of the world had to deal also with the global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) which among the many existential questions it has raised pertaining to humanity’s experience on earth, the issue of the impact our practices and the spaces that we build have on nature and our social interactions is of utmost importance.
We tried to find answers to these concerns by addressing localized community needs adopting sustainable design and human values whilst questioning what it means to be environmentally friendly.
Students highlighted implicit relationships between context, site and building. Projects took shape internally and externally by addressing architectural character (form, openings, materials), building technology (structural systems, construction techniques, materials, lighting, plumbing, heating, ventilation) and modes of living (social, cultural, geographical) focusing on the interactions of internal and external spaces with the building’s envelope as part of an insertion in a specific urban condition. Multi-layered approaches were encouraged which lead to well resolved, spatially rich and aesthetically mature projects that were properly represented graphically and physically.