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while walking in beirut, my mind is triggered by urban accidents, artifacts, leftover spaces, things people leave behind them thinking they will disappear. In truth these seemingly barren territories inform us about another layer of the city, and contain seeds of possibilities.beginning with an immersive observation of voids in the city, their artifacts and their users, fertile voids is a series of real and imagined situations that reinvest the possibilities and impossibilities embedded in our experience of beirut. in the broad context of urban studies, i have found that constructed images can communicate things that escape traditional text and architectural representation to convey things that are invisible, immaterial, yet fundamental to urbanity, like motion, tension, situation, happening.
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oral presentation with accompanying slides are now online, watch them here on the pechakucha website
fer$le voids while walking in beirut, my mind is triggered by urban accidents, ar5facts, le7over spaces, things people leave behind them thinking they will disappear. In truth these seemingly barren territories inform us about another layer of the city, and contain seeds of possibili5es. beginning with an immersive observa5on of voids in the city, their ar5facts and their users, fer5le voids is a series of real and imagined situa5ons that reinvest the possibili5es and impossibili5es embedded in our experience of beirut. in the broad context of urban studies, i have found that constructed images can communicate things that escape tradi5onal text and architectural representa5on to convey things that are invisible, immaterial, yet fundamental to urbanity, like mo5on, tension, situa5on, happening.
learning from beirut : abou-‐tony's portable bollard seat, mar mikhael if we observe the city, we begin to no5ce that with very li>le means, one can appropriate and reclaim public space at a small scale with interven5ons that are rooted in genuine concerns. you may have seen this portable seat floa5ng around mar mikhael for some 5me now. rumor has it it was made by the man who runs abou-‐tony's sandwich shop for extra sea5ng space
bridge rest-‐stop there are clues sca>ered in the most unexpected places for who wants to no5ce them. under bridges where some service drivers and some5mes beggars gather to rest, objects are le7 behind (chairs, ma>resses, used plas5c cups) and a layer of sunflower seeds covers the floor long a7er they have le7, proving that almost every space has regular and circumstan5al users
reusing accidental waste : split-‐unit urban gardening while water shortage is affec5ng the en5re city, thousands of split air-‐condi5oning units hang on facades of buildings dripping clean dis5lled water down into the streets when collec5ng and channeling this accidental waste can actually make plan5ng possible and affordable in dense urban areas despite the drought
reinves$ng urban decay : sustaining micro-‐environments -‐ the bird house many abandoned construc5ons flourish with fauna and flora we are not always aware of. minor adjustments can help preserve and sustain these fragile systems that find less and less habitable space in the dense concrete city
reinves$ng urban decay : sustaining micro-‐environments -‐ the cat shelter intervening in urban decay can provide sites for different non-‐commercial ac5vi5es. for instance, solid waste can turn spaces otherwise unused into shelters for animals who otherwise colonize trash bins and dangerous heavy-‐traffic streets, as well as provide an opportunity for communi5es with affini5es for animals to par5cipate in sustaining them.
reinves$ng urban decay : sustaining endangered social prac$ces -‐ the backgammon roo=op when undersized sidewalks become overcrowded with everything but pedestrians in the city of beirut, these configura5ons of open spaces, here an abandoned roo7op accessible from street level, can foster endangered social prac5ces
reinves$ng urban decay : fostering landscape-‐subver$ng prac$ces certain expressions and appropria5ons of public space can be problema5c when the limit between the private and the public is blurred. disused spaces can host a number of marginalized prac5ces and provide a construc5ve and community-‐based space for alterna5ve expressions and rela5ons to the city. these transforma5ve interven5ons are self-‐sustaining, they reshape space while being prac5ced within it
the city as land form : climbing wall tall twenty-‐meter blind walls that surround empty lots, textured with different pa>erns become climbing walls in the middle of the city, turning urban decay into topographies and landscapes that become within reach and provide alterna5ve sites for physical ac5vity
the city in layers : lightweight park(ing) a brief chat with the young boy and his friends guarding a dusty parking lot in the sun for 10 hours a day was enough to crystallize into an elevated urban park that adds a second layer while protec5ng from the sun and allows parking underneath
the city in the sky : public balconies roo7ops having been used as sniper sta5ons during the 1975-‐1991 war, the city has developed a trauma5c rela5on to its heights. in an effort to redefine this rapport, balconies of billboard poles are redefined as public spaces. a commercial object takes on a dimension of public interest.
the city in the sky : aerial sidewalks on some sidewalks mysterious straw baskets drop suddenly in front of you. if you looked up you may find an elevated network of footbridges far from the pollu5on, connec5ng relandscaped roofs that have different neighborhood func5ons
the city in the sky : public cable-‐car the idea of conceiving the city on a different level is both seducing and possible. When I saw the cable-‐car in the dense city of la paz in bolivia where it is used as public transporta5on, the vision of such a network for Beirut didn’t seem as surreal
practices without spaces
hijacked spaces
fertile voids
