Public Beirut

The following were excerpts from a studio currently taking place at the American University of Beirut, Department of Architecture and Design.

The Welcoming City Vertical design studio, run by Carole Lévesque, Rana Haddad and Sandra Richani, proposed, under the theme Public Beirut, to draw an active line of thought and action from the assumption that Beirut can still be a city where all can live and share, where all can inhabit and use. A city in which civic life could invade abandoned buildings, overlooked spaces and empty lots. From found and opened opportunities, this studio aimed at engaging the city as a found object with which to envision other and possible ways of being a civic participant in Beirut.

Students were asked to look at present opportunities to build a new transversal envisioning of the shoreline, hoping to move beyond the picturesqueness of the sea and imagine how its democratic space could seep in the inner layers of the urban fabric.

To start the studio, the participating students were asked to spend a week on the Corniche, covering a minimum of 24 complete hours.

Included are moments of five groups of student’s experiences and observations within the 24 hours.