USJ Project

Campus de l’innovation, de l’économie et du sport Beirut / Lebanon / 2011

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Located close to the demarcation line (Green Line) that divided Beirut during the war, in an area short on traditional urban structures, the Campus of Innovation, Economy and Sports is tied to the limits of site. Despite the area’s history, the surroundings are formed by a heterogeneous mixture of buildings strung in a line, a rather typical situation in post-war urban Lebanon.



Conceived as a vertical campus with a total area of 6,000 sqm in size, it is at once monolithic, fragmented and open. Its complexity is due to the varied nature of the brief. This issue was addressed in a way that created as much assigned as indeterminate space. Empty space was given great importance, as a vector for fluidity, for creating a sense of belonging and for encouraging unmediated encounters. This was seen as an approach to architecture as public space that was suited to experimentation with new ways of daily living. The conception of public space as project space was an attempt to reinvest Beirut with the critical resistance it lost in the war that erased many collective, public spaces. At roof-level, empty space – presented here as a space of possibility – is exploited to create an aerial walkway that overlooks the city. Even more than is the case in the cantilevered areas, volumetric tensions are deliberately heightened here to invoke modernism. This project exists within the ‘mass’ that is typical of Lebanese architecture. Here, however, this ‘mass’ is questioned, put under tension, much, perhaps, as is the case of Lebanon itself right now. 


 


[FR]
Le campus de l’innovation de l’économie et du sport. L’exemple d’une voie ou l’urbanisme est fait par collage. Il se situe dans un îlot au bord d’une route ou la structure de la ville traditionnelle est absente. Le contexte ressemble à un collage de bâtiments juxtaposés le long de cette voie, contexte assez caractéristique de l’urbanisation du Liban d’après-guerre, même si cette zone a un passé historique indéniable. Nous avons essayé d’initier par ce projet un mode d’engendrement en venant à la limite de l’îlot tout en construisant un bâtiment assez autonome. Nous y avons essentiellement travaillé les vides pour favoriser l’échange. Partir de ce vide c’était une solution pour maintenir ensemble les différences, (car c’est un projet complexe avec plusieurs programmes) Ce vide se prolonge en toiture comme une grande ballade en surplomb de la ville. Nous avons accentué les porte-à-faux, les tensions, les rapprochements des plans, les convergences géométriques pour constituer de formes de provocation que la culture « moderne » au sens moderniste ne cherchait pas à affirmer. Ici nous cachons les poteaux poutres. Nous demeurons dans une logique de masse qui nous rappelle l’architecture libanaise, mais cette masse est mise sous tension. C’est cela qui m’intéresse car nous tendons vers la construction d’une identité propre.

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    Located close to the demarcation line (Green Line) that divided Beirut during the war, in an area short on traditional urban structures, the Campus of Innovation, Economy and Sports is tied to the limits of site. Despite the area’s history, the surroundings are formed by a heterogeneous mixture of buildings strung in a line, a rather typical situation in post-war urban Lebanon. Conceived as a vertical campus with a total area of 6,000 sqm in size, it is at once monolithic, fragmented and...

    Project details
    • Year 2011
    • Work finished in 2011
    • Client USJ – Université Saint-Joseph
    • Cost 25.350.000
    • Status Completed works
    • Type Colleges & Universities
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