L.E.FT

Offshore Urbanism . Lebanon

source: L.E.FT

Reclaiming the past of Phoenician traders and the present foreigners’ evacuations, this proposal calls for an urban evacuation plan that covers the Lebanese territory and entire population in the case of yet another military conflict. Integrated with the littoral highway, a series of barges infringe on the infrastructure with a self-service drive-in parking through designated “Evacuation Lanes”. Once ready, the barges depart, simultaneously dismantling the infrastructure behind. In an exodus to nowhere and a refuge in transit, the barges host architectural programs that make use of the ‘migration’ aspect of the evacuation to reflect on social issues that are of divisive and controversial nature back ‘home’.

These barges provide a temporary exodus for healing purposes, considering the clinical potential of having a society distressed en masse. Once, the behavioral patterns of the Lebanese patients back home simulate the ones they developed on the barges, the barges become mere capsules of social desires of any repressed society. They migrate to other countries and accumulate more subversive programs while providing temporary shelters, except for their roof gardens/ cemetery; it gets grounded across the littoral, dismantling the major vehicular highway and reconnecting the cities to the Mediterranean through public park piers. By rendering the highway defunct, akin to the green-line during the war, an ecological reversal of the current deforestation is likely to occur all along the littoral. A linear urban intervention along the whole Lebanese coastline, instead of a central one focused on Beirut, relieves the latter from its subservient trade role vis-à-vis its hinterland.

L.E.FT Team: Salim al Kadi, Jasmin Behzadi, Makram el Kadi, Fumio Hirakawa, Ziad Jamaleddine, Naji Moujaes