Port of Beirut - Resurrection

Project idea

Project of port of Beirut is a popular topic among architectural students. Each striving to find novel solutions to exploit and repurpose the most expensive land available at hand. After reviewing all the political, socio-economic, environmental, and psychological impacts, the idea was to reach a sustainable, long lasting, and a flexible solution.
The inspiration of the project came from the idea of Kintsugi, a Japanese concept of binding the broken pieces together with a golden glue; which then gave birth to idea of Triquetra which literally stands for life, death and resurrection. A reminder of the fact that everything goes through the indefinite cycle of life, death and resurrection.

Project description

The symbol of triquetra has been used as a blue print throughout the site to create the infrastructure. The lines are broken on the industrial (cargo) side of the site and then comes together at the center of to form a full circle. The architecture used is mostly modular and portable keeping in check the necessity of transporting it if the need arise.

Technical information

The Passenger terminal and educational center are the two main spaces built under the hills to not only protect them from the harsh weather but also to provide sanctuary for the people working in these places; with open courtyards and green spaces.
The only building that stands out in the whole site is the sharp angled museum. The idea here was to create a glitch effect by constructing the museum as a statement piece. The landmark Silos will be submerged underwater to create an underwater memorial and an underground tunnel leading from the museum will reach the memorial for those who can’t dive in to visit the underwater memorial. And the underwater memorial will provide another lucrative aspect of improving the economy for it will be one of its kind. The concrete used for creating the sculptures for the memorial will be from bio-concrete, that can regenerate itself and is an excellent bio adsorbent to clean the water of ammonium nitrate traces and replenishing the aquatic life.
A tidal power plant installed on the side of the wave breaker can solve the problem of the shortage of electricity in the country. A tidal power plant can generate 240MGW of electricity, and Beirut only requires 194MGW of electricity to run its operations smoothly.