NEO BEIRUT: A WORK/LIVE/PLAY PROPOSAL

USEK - Holy spirit University of Kaslik

Project idea

On the 4th of August 2020, the aftermath of an earth-shattering blast left the heart of Beirut destroyed. In just a matter of seconds, the city was unrecognizable. Hit right in its rich cultural center, these few seconds were sufficient to decide the fate of the urban and social fabric of our capital and its architecture. Decades of acquired cultural assets where annihilated, causing more harm than the notorious civil war of 1975.

This highly emotional disaster, along with the ongoing financial crisis that hit the country in late-2019, the street protests, the political turmoil, the pandemic and the nationwide lockdown, have all contributed to withering the country’s already precarious stability.

MANIFESTO:
We believe that this phase is the DATUM POINT in the new history of Beirut. It represents a new era, the last chance for the city to develop into a truly contemporary, inclusive and sustainable city. Just like resilient ecosystems are based on robustness and connectedness, we believe it is of vital importance that interventions in building projects should be part of an integral approach. This approach is based on several themes, including biodiversity, food production, health, experience, social cohesion and interaction, contemplation and energy. Our goal is to structure a new and resilient identity for the neighborhood rooted in a mixed-use working and living environment anchored by inclusivity, sustainability, and culture.

Neo Beirut aims to breathe life into the city again, by re-adapting, remodeling and transforming the landmark towers of Beirut, precisely the vertical buildings affected first-hand by the blast, also know as FRONTLINERS. The three redeemed buildings were selected for their volume, location and luxury status, and were intended for three functions that could recreate the public life that characterizes a neighborhood.

Can the chosen parasitic towers be rethought, to break with the traditional multi-storey building trends that isolate the residents, and then transformed into sustainable and community-oriented entities, in which social encounters are privileged?

Now, in order to reconvert the soon to become PILLARS of the area, we had to go back to the roots, to the bases of Beiruti Culture.
Beirut’s social fabric is a mosaic-like composition of many different cultures. Its heritage and history are diverse, and marked by constant evolution, destruction, reconstruction, and change. On a smaller scale, the heart of the Beiruti culture is community and family, which are most influenced by the traditional neighborhoods and streets - being both a physical connection between everyone and a place of interaction.
Preserving the character of Beirut, Neo Beirut is a framework for a new vertical city. By respecting the communal aspects of the city while allowing growth, this new urban framework challenges the frozen and static quality of current tower typologies.

Neo-Beirut towers must both address the larger issues of identity and the smaller, more personal-scale issues of dwelling, working, and living. The existing typologies where inhabitants are isolated and segregated is contradictory to Beirut’s identity and the culture of its people.

Project description

Key components of the local urban fabric are retained, rethought, and shifted vertically into a new three-dimensional urban organizational grid, inspired by the current modularity of the tower’s elevations and volumes. The street therefore continues up from the ground plane, weaving throughout the entire tower.
Social interaction can now happen both above and below the ground plane. Ranging from the more personal and immediate, this interaction creates an identification with a broader community by means of visual consciousness of a suspended neighborhood. Levels above the street serve as the most public part.

Small scale interventions for the GREATER GOOD
Follow the YELLOW ; From the ground up, creating a suspended street by means of a recognizable signaling system.
At the ground level, a public passageway/new street crosses through the exploded centers of the towers, leading to a designed place (from a space to a place).
Sidewalk re adaptation, kiosk relocation, larger pedestrianized space, and new soft mobility planning, narrower and slower vehicle traffic.
The 'ex-novo' interventions would be a waste to energy plant system applicable to the clusters in the neighborhood, and a grid system containing kiosks and an aquaponics farm that act as the connector body of the entire proposal, both for the public spaces and for the programs of the various buildings, which are also related to the public pedestrian route, finally giving an answer to the problem of mobility.

Technical information

A new system of waste management is generated throughout the whole neighborhood, comprising
three aspects of sustainability:

First, a street-waste collection system, concentrated in the towers ground levels and a recycling plant located in the Charles El Helou Station.

Second, a waste to energy system implemented in the individual towers and also applied to the clusters in the neighborhood. Energy is generated in the waste transformer from the waste generated in the buildings and the street waste collected from the neighborhood. Additionally, a Power Nest generates electricity from wind and solar power, to guarantee regular provision of sustainable energy in the three towers.

Third, a water collection system on the two scales of the neighborhood and the building,
On the neighborhood scale, it is to be collected in the special rainwater sewage, and on the building scale, rainwater and grey water are harvested/collected in the building basement, to be reused for food production and other processes around the building. Black water from the residential units and neighborhood is transformed into power in the waste to energy plant.

Documentation

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