Restoring the Qaraoun Biosphere

Académie libanaise des Beaux-Arts, Faculty of Architecture

Project idea

The Qaraoun Dam was built in the Beqaa valley of Lebanon during the 1950s to put forth a water reservoir that would provide drinking water, irrigation water and hydroelectricity for the region. Colonies of fresh water trout were introduced into the lake, which initiated the development of the region's economy through eco-tourism and fishing.
Since its establishment, the Qaraoun Lake has been accumulating all kinds of pollutants dumped in the river feeding it. This has led to toxicity levels so high that any living thing in the waters died and it has become unusable.
This has led to the decline of the economic and touristic prosperity brought upon the region by the lake. The boat tours were cancelled since the boats could not sail properly in so much dense algae. Fishing was prohibited because of the toxic chemicals found in the fish. All restaurants and resorts had to shut down since all their leisurely activities depended on the lake.
Henceforth, the proposed project is a complex built on the lake shores. Its purpose is to help cleanse the waters and bring back the riches brought upon the region by the lake.

Project description

During the 1980s, the Lebanese government started to implement new infrastructures in the region to regulate and cleanse sewer waters infiltrating the lake and river. These infrastructures include many water treatment facilities, one for every 4-5 villages in the Beqaa valley. After cleansing the used waters coming from homes and factories, the facilities would dump the clean water into the Litany River’s stream or its tributaries. Nonetheless, the waters kept being polluted.
Through this project, I am initiating a model that would help cleanse the waters and bring back prosperity to the Qaraoun Biosphere. The first step is to establish and put into action different laws concerning waste dumping and groundwater infiltration in the Beqaa valley. Once the waters protected, the cleansing process can begin. In their natures, lake and river waters can purify themselves through the course of time. The only way, we as humans can help this process, is by giving it a push forward. This is where my intervention comes in.
I am basing my project on the already present water treatment facility in the town of Bab Maraa on the shores of the Qaraoun Lake. The first thing I’m doing there is increasing its daily capacity to 150% and rebuilding it in a way for it to become more apparent to the visitor yet having a lesser impact on the slope. As such, the treatment tanks will appear as monolithic structures emerging from the soil and the rest of the technical facilities will be moved to a building integrated in the site that follows the traditional architecture in the region. I have created a path going through the different parts of the facility and over the treatment basins. Its purpose is create an independent promenade guiding the visitor and providing insight on how the water treatment system works.
The second part of the project would be a leisure center that would help attract visitors to the project and bring back tourism to the site. This is the second main structure in the project, housing a market, a club, a banquet hall, a restaurant and a swimming pool. The club and banquet hall situated on the same floor each have their own terraces that are used for outdoor seating and extensions to the spaces. They function independently from each other but they can be used to work simultaneously as well for major events. The restaurant serves traditional Lebanese food, like the ones that were flourishing around the lake and has its own terrace. The swimming pool uses the treated waters from the facility and provides a safe place for the visitor to swim without being exposed to the murky lake waters that have proven to be fatal to anyone that has gone swimming in them. The market is where local grown fruits and vegetables are sold to the public. This entire building is connected to a pier that houses tour boats and is where anglers can taxi and sell the fresh water trout harvested from the lake.
The third and last building – which is a lightweight wooden structure – houses a seasonal restaurant alongside trout farming in aquaponics. This restaurant works only during the trout’s maturity season. During the rest of the year, the trout farming works progressively in three water basins, one for each step of a trout’s life. The water is provided by the treatment facility and cleansed through an aquaponics system twinned with agricultural greenhouses. The majority of the trout maturing here will be released into the clean lake waters to repopulate it with its previous inhabitants.
The last part of the project is the upper agricultural field. Located on the highest part of the premises, the field is made up of stair like terraces called “jells” and housing different types of fruit trees indigenous to the region. A sort of aggro-touristic promenade goes through these fields. The visitor can use this path to go through the different kind of trees and pick their own fruit. These fields are irrigated with the water coming from the cleansing ponds overlooking them. These ponds contain plants that naturally clean the lake water in order to make it usable for irrigation. This water will go through the soil under the trees, and seep into the ground water feeding the lake.
All these parts of the complex are interconnected through different paths. These paths go through the 90.000m2 of agricultural and green spaces in the estate. Three major outdoor spaces are present as connectors between the different structures; an outdoor amphitheater, a multi platform playground and the “concrete falls” connecting the facility to the seasonal restaurant through the treatment basins.
Each part of the project will provide clean water that will be poured into the lake and through the course of time; the waters will be naturally cleansed and purified. This project is a representation of a model that should be adapted throughout the different facilities surrounding the lake. If this is applied, the waters would become usable in a near future and the prosperity and richness that were once brought by the lake would come back even stronger.

Technical information

Please refer to the pictures attached and their numbers
1. Site Analysis and Thesis
2. Site and Project
3. Exploded Diagram
4. Functional Diagram (Clockwise from top left)
Facility – Market –Parking – Club – Banquet Hall – Restaurant – Pool – Pier – Aquaponics – Seasonal Restaurant – Treatment Tanks
5. Circulations Diagram
In red – Visitor circuit
In yellow – Leisure circuit
In green – Agricultural circuit
In purple – Employee circuit
6. Agricultural Diagram
7. A01 – Mass Plan
8. A02 – Facility Floor 2 – National Office for the Litany (Offices)
9. A03 – Facility Floor 1 – Oxygen and Chlorine tanks, entrance, employee lounge, veterinary, water quality laboratory, electric facilities
10. A04 – Leisure Centre Floor 0 – Parking, market, fruits and vegetables cleaning and storage
11. A05 – Leisure Centre Floor B1 – Club, banquet hall, kitchens and technical area
12. A06 – Leisure Centre Floor B2 – Restaurant and kitchen, swimming pool terrace
13. A07 – Leisure Centre Floor B3 – Changing rooms and technical area for pool, pier, boat repair and parking, boat rental kiosk
14. A08 – Seasonal restaurant and trout farming in aquaponics
15. A09 – Elevations 1 – Whole project elevation – Leisure Center elevation
16. A10 – Elevations 2 – Facility elevation – Trout restaurant elevation – Trout restaurant section
17. A11 – Sections 1 – 2 sections on Leisure center – 1 section on faciltiy
18. A12 – Sections 2 – zoom in on all sections cited above
19. Renders
20. Model