Discursive Formations Portfolio

Fadi ShayyaIssue 2November 2011

Urbanism & Design

Development & Planning

Critical Approach

2008 Basil Fuleihan Award

At the Edge of the City

MUD BArch

Compiled and edited by Fadi ShayyaDesigned by Danny KhouryPublished by DISCURSIVE FORMATIONS

w w w . d i s c u r s i v e f o r m a t i o n s . n e t

A Discursive Formations publication, first edition published in November 2010

© Fadi Shayya, 2011

Copyright for texts and images rests with the author unless otherwise stated.Copyright for the FBO Maps rests with the Collective for Research and Training on Development – Action (2009).Copyright for the BFIGG paper rests with the Basil Fuleihan Foundation (2008).

Creative DirectionFadi Shayya & Danny KhouryLayout & Graphic DesignDanny Khouryhttp://dannyk.wordpress.com/

Typeset in TitilliumMaps, AUdimat, & Univers Thin Ultra Condensed. Layout software is Adobe InDesign CS3.

This work by Fadi Shayya is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available from [email protected].

Attribution — You must attribute Portfolio: Fadi Shayya to Fadi Shayya.Noncommercial — You may not use this work for commercial purposes. No Derivative Works — You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work.

Public Domain — Where the work or any of its elements is in the public domain under applicable law, that status is in no way affected by the license.Other Rights — In no way are any of the following rights affected by the license: Your fair dealing or fair use rights, or other applicable copyright exceptions and limitations; The author’s moral rights; Rights other persons may have either in the work itself or in how the work is used, such as publicity or privacy rights.

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/

Every reasonable attempt has been made to identify owners of copyright. Errors or omissions will be corrected in subsequent editions. The work-related information expressed herein is compiled and documented by the author and may not express the official records of the mentioned organizations or firms.

This document is available online fromhttp://issuu.com/discursiveformations

Printed & bound by 3ind Riad, Beirut, Lebanonhttp://www.3indriad.com/

ReferencesDr. Jala Makhzoumi, Professor, AUB(PhD University of Sheffield, UK)[email protected]

Dr. Mona Harb, Associate Professor, AUB(PhD University of Aix-Marseille III, France)[email protected]

Dr. George Arbid, Associate Professor, AUB(DDes Harvard University, USA)[email protected]

Mr. Abdul-halim Jabr, Consultant & Senior Lecturer, AUB (MUD MIT, USA)[email protected]

Mr. Bassem Nsouli, Director of Town Planning & Urban Design Department, Dar Al-Handasah (Shair & Partners)[email protected]

Mr. Mustapha Madi, Project Manager, Head of Town Planning Department, Dar Al-Handasah (Shair & Partners)[email protected]

ReferencesContents

IntroductionProfile

Degrees & Awards Bachelor of Architectural Engineering Master of Urban Design

Publications Editor Contributor

Urban Planning & Urban Design Practice Urban Planner Urban Designer

Spatial & Design Consultancy Spatial Consultant Infographic Consultant

Critical Urban Practice Coordinator

Development & International Organizations Experience Associate Officer Planning Consultant Field Coordinator

Architecture & Design Practice Architect Consultant Architect

Public & Academic Interaction Participations Lectures, Seminars, & Talks Invited Juror Organizing Member Features and Citations Community Service Affiliations

Appendices Appendix 1 Appendix 2 Appendix 3 Appendix 4Credits

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65

Contents

Ramlieh mountain rappel, Lebanon (Shayya, 2009)

The document that you are now reading is my professional and personal portfolio. It is professional because it documents all my work experience so far, and it compiles textual and visual information about the most significant of these experiences. It is also personal because it documents all my not-for-profit and volunteer activism, community service, and social interaction with fellow colleagues, friends, or new acquaintances.

The portfolio is designed in a magazine format and layout to facilitate organizing and reading information. First level sections are organized according to my preferences of what I consider to be more or less significant (ex: publications preceding practice), without undermining the importance of every component of my work being essential in the overall evolution process. Within each section, second level sections are organized according to my role (ex: urban planner or coordinator) and third level sections are chronologically listed. The dark grey header stands for an entity (ex: firm or organization) while the light blue header stands for a component of that entity (ex: projects at a firm). A white background is prevalent for reasons of clarity, and different types of visuals are ornately used throughout the document to increase interactivity.

The portfolio is structured in 10 sections illustrating my professional and personal endeavors and the associations between them. The first section presents my profile, interests, degrees, and awards. Section 2 documents my publications and features my major work so far At the Edge of the City, a book on Beirut’s urban park and public space. Section 3 presents my involvement in the fields of urban planning and urban design while Section 4 documents the spatial and graphic consultancies I undertook individually or with colleagues. Section 5 illustrates my inclination for a critical urban practice that challenges the business restrictions and diplomatic politics of corporate design practices. Section 6 presents my involvement in the fields of regional and international development, complimentary to understanding city making and urbanization. Section 7 documents my previous architectural design and execution experience, mainly in Lebanon. Finally, Section 9 archives my public interaction in the forms of festivals, conferences, talks, seminars, juries, and features while Section 10 presents my research and writing samples.

By examining my portfolio, I hope you can formulate a good idea about the type of person I am and the contribution I can make to the environment that I am part of.

Fadi ShayyaBeirut, November 23, 2010

Introduction1

SUMMARY

• Nine years of research and practice on the built environment

• Experienced in diverse and multi-scalar, urban and architectural interventions

• Worked on multi-million dollars urban planning projects

• Familiarity with the planning and design, professional environments in Lebanon and the Arab Region, and with the United Nations system and development projects

• Skilled in strategizing, coordination, presentation, and proposal writing

• Knowledge of and involvement with alternative design and cultural undertakings

• Edited a book and wrote papers/essays

• Languages: Arabic (Native), English (fluent speak, read, and write), French (basic)

• Computer Skills: practical knowledge of MS Windows Interface, MS Office (Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Visio), Autodesk AutoCAD, Adobe Suite (Photoshop, InDesign, Acrobat); conceptual knowledge of GIS and Coding Applications; knowledgeable of social media tools and internet savvy

• Citizenship: Lebanese, Residence: Lebanon, DoB: 01 January 1980

2

Fadi Shayya at the TINAG 2010 festival, London (Williams, 2010)

INTERESTS & CONCERNS

Spatial Production & (un)Justice, Master Planning, Urban Design, Landscape Transformations, Social & Power Structures, Development Politics, (un)Sustainability, Urban Governance, Housing, Public Space, Architecture, Semiotics & Semantics, Discourse Analysis, Infographics, and Pedagogy

Profile3

5

Part 1:Degrees & Awards

6

Basil Fuleihan Innovative Good Governance Award

The Basil Fuleihan Foundation seeks to encourage innovative practices in good governance, particularly among the youth of today, who will be the leaders of tomorrow. Good governance initiatives are a burgeoning phenomenon across the globe, regionally and locally, with substantial ongoing investments to support improvements in underlying organizational structures, administrative procedures, training of staff and technological infrastructures, especially in the delivery of services to citizens.

7

Degrees & Awards

Master of Urban Design, American University of Beirut (AUB)

Thesis “Ecological Landscape Design as an Alternative Urban Design Approach in Lebanese Mountain Settlements: Saoufar Case Study;” Committee: Professors Jala Makhzoumi (Landscape), Robert Saliba (Urbanism), & Barbara Drieskens (Anthropology)

Courses included: Introduction to Planning Theory and Policy; Ecological Landscape Design and Planning; Introduction to Policy Analysis; Urbanism; Urban Economics; Planning and Design Workshop; Building the Colonies

2007Laureate of the Basil Fuleihan Innovative Good Governance Award

2008

Best Paper in Architecture & Design, Fifth Faculty of Engineering & Architecture Student Conference, AUB

2006

Professional Degree in Architectural Engineering, Beirut Arab University

FYP “Formal Re-interpretation of Reconstruction in Beirut Central District: The Case of Regional HQ for a Multinational Corporation in Martyrs’ Square”

2002Full Scholarship Award for the Master in Urban Design, AUB

2004-2007

8BArch FYP

The postwar reconstruction project of Beirut’s central district has always been a controversial urban development of neoliberal governance and capitalist undertakings versus integrating social reconciliation and economic welfare into the built fabric. Under guidance of a New Urbanist master plan, the architecture of the central district fell under the cultural and bureaucratic hegemony of selective heritage preservation (mainly the French colonial period) or designing for opulence (both in office and residential spaces).

The architecture graduation project presented herein proposes a discursive approach to architecture while acknowledging the de facto powers that contribute to shaping the built environment. The program is imagined to be the regional headquarters of a

multinational company seeking to expand its economic base in the Arab region. The context-generated architecture advances forms that imitate nature (in this case the multi-layered history of Beirut) coupled with engineering (structural) creativity. But the building’s complexity takes off when urban design engages architecture to enhance public space. This is expressed in introducing a quasi-public space into the building, adding to liveliness of the central district and social value of the urban space while not intersecting the private program of the corporation. At the forefront of this proposed architecture is experimentation with meanings of context and allowing for reflection, a political sphere that is definitely needed in any postwar context.

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Ecological Landscape Design as an Alternative Urban Design Approach in Lebanese Mountain Settlements: Saoufar Case StudyThe focus on zoning and circulation that characterized a master plan approach in urban design, popular in the 1960s, fails to address the dynamism and complexity of twenty first century urbanism. Land speculation, random sprawl, environmental degradation and the unsustainable management of natural resources pose considerable challenges for sustainable future development of human settlements. Architects, urban planners, urban and landscape designers are challenged to explore approaches that are dynamic and responsive to the rapid co-evolution of people and their built environments.

A holistic ecological landscape design approach is one approach that is explored in the case of Lebanese urban mountain settlements. The approach as applied in the case study of Saoufar provides an integrated framework for reading landscape transformations and a sound ecological basis for interventions that address both people and landscape, past, present and future.

The study is based on archival research, interviews, and field surveys to construct a holistic reading of the abiotic, biotic and cultural components of the landscape

of Saoufar. The methodological approach of ecological landscape design was applied to identify Ecological Landscape Associations (ELA) and define Landscape Character Zones that are specific to the local, regional and national contexts.

ELA and landscape character zones served as the foundation for proposing urban design intervention strategy that recognize and protect the natural, rural and urban cultural landscape heritage of Saoufar. The strategies, in addition, aim to restore the historical linkages between the town of Saoufar and its outlying landscape, to enhance the Mediterranean landscape character of Saoufar.

As an urban designer who is concerned with enhancing the quality of life, developing spatial environments, endorsing environmental awareness and promoting sustainability, I find that ecological landscape design is an alternative approach for urban design to deal with Lebanese urban mountain settlements. With an underlying understanding of landscape as holistic, dynamic and evolutionary, it forms a model that responds to morphological and socio-economic landscape transformations and understands the existing, historical culture-nature relation for similar contexts in Lebanon, and the Mediterranean.

MUD Abstract

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Part 2:Publications

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Foreword by George Arbid • Design by Danny KhouryEdited by Fadi Shayya

http://attheedgeofthecity.wordpress.com

REINHABITING PUBLIC SPACE TOWARD THE RECOVERY OF BEIRUT'S HORSH AL-SANAWBAR

NOW

AVAILABLE AT

ALL MAJO

R

BOOKSTORES

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Foreword by George Arbid • Design by Danny KhouryEdited by Fadi Shayya

http://attheedgeofthecity.wordpress.com

REINHABITING PUBLIC SPACE TOWARD THE RECOVERY OF BEIRUT'S HORSH AL-SANAWBAR

NOW

AVAILABLE AT

ALL MAJO

R

BOOKSTORES

At the Edge of the CityEditor

2010

Shayya, Fadi, ed. At the Edge of the City: Reinhabiting Public Space toward the Recovery of Beirut’s Horsh Al-Sanawbar. 1st Edition. Beirut: DISCURSIVE FORMATIONS, 2010.

The work is a critique of reading urban space, which builds on historical accounts of the park and employs multidisciplinary analysis in reading the complexities of space. Rather than looking at the park as an isolated, recreational, urban program, the work conceptualizes the park as a continuation of the city’s cultural and infrastructural landscapes. The collaborative volume departs from the editor’s original action research on Beirut’s park and covers issues of space & place, memory, citizenship, social practices, urban governance, activism, environment, discourse, and design.

The book content has been presented, exhibited, and debated widely in Beirut, mainly at the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy & International Affairs (AUB), the Lebanese American University, the Lebanese University, the Polypod Creative Series, and the Festival of Lebanese Art Books. Also, the book has been reviewed in popular media, and it was lately hosted at the This Is Not A Gateway Festival in London.

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“Thanks again so much for the book and for the inventive way

in which you render this project--I will use it in my classes...”

AbdouMaliq Simone, Professor of Sociology, Goldsmiths,University of London

“It is clearly with that in mind that Fadi Shayya is working, along with the authors of

essays and projects collected here. Rather than covering the mainstream, Shayya provides a platform for the alternative...

Horsh Al-Sanawbar was waiting for a publication like this one.

Now it awaits action.”George Arbid, Professor of

Architecture, American University of Beirut

“I think that projects like At the Edge of the City are so

important, because they are political and thematize crucial urban issues; but most of all, because they did not lose faith

in creating a sort of critical awareness for the cities’

qualities and try to inject some vision into this vacuum of

imagination.” Ali Saad, Partner at UBERBAU

GbR | Architecture & Urbanism, Berlin, Germany

Inside the closed section of Beirut’s urban park, Horsh Al-Sanawbar (Shayya, 2010)

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“Public space is a very sensitive issue, and I am very pleased

with your contribution on this topic…It was also my pleasure

to share this wonderfully crafted editions with my fellow

colleagues, all very much interested in the topic of public

space in Lebanon.”Leon Telvizian, Professor and

Director of the Graduate Program of Landscape Planning,

Lebanese University

“It is a lovely piece of work and I congratulate you on

producing it.”Asef Bayat, Professor of

Humanities, Leiden University

16 Book Table of ContentsForeword: Hyding the Park > George ArbidIntroduction: The Discursive Formation of Reinhabiting & Recovery > Fadi

Shayya

Part One: An Intricate Urban ContextBeirut Became Her Sea. So, Let’s Plant the Sea! > Bilal KhbeizFrom Woods to Park: A Historical & Ethnographic Investigation of

Programming the Landscape of the Horsh > Fadi ShayyaKill Him, Crush Him: No Trespassing in the Woods > Bachar Al-AmineRe: No Choice > Fouad AsfourA Transforming Landscape > Images courtesy GIS Transport &

Directorate of Geographic AffairsEvolution of the Horsh > Infographics by Fadi Shayya, Lina Abou Reslan,

& Nancy HamadBeyrouth - Promenade des Pins (circa1895) > Postcard by AnonymousSeeing the Imaginary: A Story behind Pine Nuts > Lasse LauSilent Witnesses: Old Pine Trees of the Horsh > Photos by Danny KhouryPine Trees Don’t Make Pine Nuts Anymore > Painting by Sumayyah

Samaha

Part Two: Heterotopias of Park & CityOn Modernity, Urbanity, & Urban Dwellers > Hussein YaakoubThe Real Versus the Imagined City: A Traveler’s Notes on Imagining Public

Space > Fadi ShayyaZone 9: The Horsh in the Master Plan of Beirut > Master plan courtesy

the Municipality of BeirutThoughts on the Horsh on a Sleepless Night: Dichotomies of Space,

Values, Ethics, & Us > Jana NakhalStitching the Scar: The Horsh as a Site for “Collected Memories” > Rola

IdrisMore Green Space Disappears: ISF to Take 9,000 Square Meters of Horsh

Beirut: The Municipality has Agreed that a Temporary Police Station Can Be Built > Nada Bakri

From Non-Sense to Economic-Sense > Lana SalmanExcluding & Excluded: The Nature & Processes of Exclusion from the City

> Tara MahfoudOdyssey in the Park: A Journey of Understanding Women& Public Space > Nancy Hamad, Sara AbouGhazal, & Jana NakhalHorsh Mosaic > Infographics by François EidWhat He Didn’t Tell Me or Perhaps What He Didn’t Know… > Ghassan

MaasriOpen Public Spaces in Beirut > Infographics by Fadi Shayya, Lina Abou

Reslan, & Nancy HamadTerra Verte > Marwan Rechmaoui

Part Three: Transient Citizenship, transient Public Space

The Empty Park: Deciphering Ideas of Public Space & Citizenship in Horsh Beirut > Rana Andraos

Beyrouth - La Forêt des Pins - Les Courses (circa 1920) > Postcard by Anonymous

The Horsh in Lebanese Law > Compiled by Bassam Chaya2005 Research Interviews > Fadi ShayyaBeirut’s Public Space (or Lack Thereof) > Hanin GhaddarIf It Exists, Sensibility Is Not Enough: Struggle for Urban Parks in Beirut >

Salman AbbasBeyrouth - Promenade des Pins (circa 1935) > Postcard by AnonymousMP, Activist See Red over Green Spaces: AUB Debate over ParksGenerates More Heat than Light > Samar KanafaniStructural Connectivity: Alternative Design Strategies to Reconnect the

Park to Its Context > Studio ALBAA Picnic in “Bois des Pins” > The Picnic Group“Take Only Memories, Leave Nothing but Footprints” > Society for the

Protection of Nature in LebanonInside Out [1]: Contemporary Photographic Documentation of the Horsh >

Photos by Fouad AsfourInside Out [2]: Contemporary Photographic Documentation of the Horsh >

Photos by Fadi ShayyaBeirut Park > Poster by Danny KhouryA Comparative Perspective of Open, Green Spaces > Infographics by

Gregoire & Serge SerofBook Covers > Artwork by Danny Khoury

“It was snatched away by fervent readers that were curious to read it. I have since heard

much praise from students and colleagues. Many congratulations for your achievement. Knowing your initiative and persistence, I look forward to many, many more contributions.”

Jala Makhzoumi, Professor of Landscape Design and Ecosystem

Management, American University of Beirut

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Talks & Public Interaction on Beirut’s Urban Park“The Grass Is Never Greener Except on the Other Side!” Book Launch, 23 October 2010, This Is Not A Gateway

(London)

“On Knowledge Production & the Creative Process: Reflections on the Unfolding of At the Edge of the City,” Discussion, 15 September 2010, Polypod Creative Series

“Municipal Governance & Social Perceptions of Public Space in Beirut,” Lecture, 5 September 2010, Nahnoo NGO

“Public Space, Environment, Citizenship, & Good Governance,” Panel (Introduction to Environmental Science Seminar), 20 August 2010, Lebanese American University

“An Ambitious Policy Agenda for Green Open Spaces in Lebanese Cities (GOS),” Press Conference (Access to Rights, Rights to Resources Campaign), 11 June 2010, Green Line NGO

“The Aggressive Nature of Urban Public Space,” Lecture, 8 June 2010, Institute of Fine Arts, Lebanese University

“At the Edge of the City: Policy Implications for Public Space in Beirut,” Panel, 31 May 2010, Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy & International Affairs, AUB

“At the Edge of the City,” Book Launch, 30 April 2010, Sunflower Cultural Center

“It was very nice to meet you in Beirut last week. Thank you so much for the book, which looks

very interesting.”Teresa Caldeira, Professor of City & Regional Planning, University

of California, Berkeley

Evolution of Beirut’s Park (Shayya, Abou Reslan, & Hamad, 2009)

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The

post

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atur

ed w

ith A

t the

Edg

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the

City

(Kho

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2009

)

19Contributor

Book Sections

Conference Proceedings

2010

Popular Media

2010

Visuals

2010

Not Published

2010

Shayya, Fadi, Fouad Asfour, and Lana Salman. “Recognizing the Invisible Monument: On the Politics of Memorilization and Public Space in Post-war Beirut.” Critical Cities: Ideas, Knowledge and Agitation from Emerging Urbanists. Ed. Deepa Naik and Trenton Oldfield. Vol. III. London: Myrdle Court Press, 2012.

Shayya, Fadi. “Beirut Park: Horsh Al-Sanawbar” Beirut Gardens: Greening Places, Engaging Communities. Ed. Jala Makhzoumi. Beirut: AUB Press, 2011.

---. “Production of a Pseudo-Public Space: A Reading of Park Closure in Beirut.” Typographic Matchmaking in the City. Ed. Huda Smitshuijzen AbiFares. Amsterdam: Khatt Books, 2010.

---. “2005 Research Interviews.” At the Edge of the City: Reinhabiting Public Space toward the Recovery of Beirut’s Horsh Al-Sanawbar. Ed. Fadi Shayya. Beirut: DISCURSIVE FORMATIONS, 2010. 135-138.

---. “From Woods to Park: An Historical & Ethnographic Investigation of Programming the Landscape of the Horsh.” At the Edge of the City: Reinhabiting Public Space toward the Recovery of Beirut’s Horsh Al-Sanawbar. Ed. Fadi Shayya. Beirut: DISCURSIVE FORMATIONS, 2010. 23-27.

---. “Introduction: The Discursive Formation of Reinhabiting & Recovery.” At the Edge of the City: Reinhabiting Public Space toward the Recovery of Beirut’s Horsh Al-Sanawbar. Ed. Fadi Shayya. Beirut: DISCURSIVE FORMATIONS, 2010. 13-16.

---. “The Real versus the Imagined City: A Traveler’s Notes on Imagining Public Space.” At the Edge of the City: Reinhabiting Public Space toward the Recovery of Beirut’s Horsh Al-Sanawbar. Ed. Fadi Shayya. Beirut: DISCURSIVE FORMATIONS, 2010. 71-78.

Shayya, Fadi. “Enacting Public Space: History and Social Practices of Beirut’s Horsh Al-Sanawbar.” Edited by Marwan Darwish. 5th FEA Student Conference: Proceedings 2006. Beirut: AUB Press, 2006. 97-102.

Shayya, Fadi, Zeina Salam and Leila Abi Khuzam. “A Park Trail of Natural & Cultural Heritage.” Landscape August 2009: 60-63.

Shayya, Fadi. “On Cedars and the ‘Cedar Island’….” The Daily Star, February 28, 2009: 4.

Shayya, Fadi, Lina Abou Reslan and Nancy Hamad. The Geopolitics of Health: FBO vs. Private & Public Hospitals in Lebanon. Infographics. Beirut: Collective for Research and Training on Development - Action, 2010.

---. The Geopolitics of Education: FBO vs. Private & Public Schools in Lebanon. Infographics. Beirut: Collective for Research and Training on Development - Action, 2010.

Shayya, Fadi. “Inside Out (2): Contemporary Photographic Documentation of the Horsh.” At the Edge of the City: Reinhabiting Public Space toward the Recovery of Beirut’s Horsh Al-Sanawbar. Ed. Fadi Shayya. Beirut: DISCURSIVE FORMATIONS, 2010. 173-175.

Shayya, Fadi, Lina Abou Reslan and Nancy Hamad. “Infographics: Evolution of the Horsh.” At the Edge of the City: Reinhabiting Public Space toward the Recovery of Beirut’s Horsh Al-Sanawbar. Ed. Fadi Shayya. Beirut: DISCURSIVE FORMATIONS, 2010. 47.

---. “Infographics: Open Public Spaces in Beirut.” At the Edge of the City: Reinhabiting Public Space toward the Recovery of Beirut’s Horsh Al-Sanawbar. Ed. Fadi Shayya. Beirut: DISCURSIVE FORMATIONS, 2010. 117-120.

Shayya, Fadi. “Target 11 and the MDGs in the Arab Countries: The ‘Urban Poor’ Window.” Study presented at the expert group meeting “Urban Governance and the Millennium Development Goals: Towards Implementing MDGs’ Target 11: ‘Equitable Cities’,” organized by UN-ESCWA at the Arab Towns Organization HQ, Kuwait City, December 10-12, 2007.

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Part 3:Urban Planning

& Urban Design Practice

23Dar Al-Handasah (Shair & Partners),Beirut, Lebanon

Urban Planner

Mar 2010 – Now

Hadaeq Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid (HSMBR), Dubai, UAE

Saudi Arabia National Guard (SANG) Housing Project, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

• Project Coordinator: performed the tasks of liaising with the Client, coordinating with the Authorities and project manager, coordinating between the Area office and the Design Office

• Contributed to the concept master plan design audit and to project management tasks

• HSMBR is a 980 ha development whose program includes golf and polo residential communities, mixed use areas, a university hospital, and theme parks

• Group Leader in Urban Planning: performed the tasks of leading the urban planning team, coordinating with the engineering trades and project manager, and following up on bureaucratic tasks

• Contributed to the site analysis, planning and design of all 8 SANG Housing Master Plans in 5 different sites across KSA

• SANG Housing Project comprise 8 sites in Western, Central, and Eastern KSA with a total of 112,500 population and 1,250 ha land area. Each site hosts officer and soldier neighborhoods with their related community facilities

• Group Leader in Urban Planning: performed the tasks of leading the urban planning team, coordinating with the engineering trades and project manager, and following up with related bureaucratic tasks

• Contributed to the review of the Qasr Khozam Master Plan including: compliance of project drawings with zoning regulations (podium and tower coverage and

heights, setbacks, and percentage of open space), and updating the private realm landscape regulations in the Planning & Design Guidelines report

• Qasr Khozam is a high-density, mixed-use urban development; the Master Plan is designed Dar Al-Handasah; the site area is 4,129,000 m2

Qasr Khozam Development, Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Dar Al-Handasah (Shair & Partners) has been a pioneering force in the planning, design and implementation of development projects in the Middle East, Africa and Asia since its beginnings of 1956.Today, Dar Al-Handasah is a global consultancy, with 44 offices throughout 30 countries, known for their problem identification, tailor-made designs, quality, on-time deliverables and multi-disciplinary expertise.Dar Al-Handasah is a founding member of the Dar Group, an international network of professional service firms, comprised of over 11,000 staff members located in 43 countries around the world. We are dedicated to planning,

Firm Profile designing and engineering facilities, installations and structures that contribute to the sustainable advances of communities. The Dar Group is Dar Al-Handasah, Perkins + Will, T.Y. Lin International, Penspen Group, R & H Railway, Pierre-Yves Rochon, and IPA Energy + Water.Dar Al-Handasah carries out urban and regional planning and infrastructure developments with a team approach, producing comprehensive and sustainable solutions for our clients. Dar works in the areas of Master Plans & Development Strategies, New Town Studies, Urban Regeneration & Development, Residential Community Planning, Tourism Development, and Industrial & Employment Area Planning.

www.dargroup.com

24 Dubai World Central-Residential City,

United Arab Emirates• Contributed to the review of the DWC-RC Master Plan including: compliance of the increase in FAR with zoning regulations (lot coverage, heights, and setbacks);

updating the Planning Regulations & Development Guidelines report; and, coordinating the updating process with the different engineering trades

Designing a Visual Tool of Abu Dhabi’s

Urban Planning Council

25Duhok Regional Park, Erbil, Iraq

• Contributed to the research and writing of a report section on the natural landscape of the project

site (flora, fauna, avifauna) and to the review of the executive summary and environmental policies section

Departmental Projects & General Input

• Proposal for Al-Baleed Area Master Plan, Sultanate of Oman• Abu Dhabi Regional Plan 2030, United Arab Emirates• Proposal for King Abdulaziz Equestrian City, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia• Proposal for KAIA – Airport Cities: East Parcel,

Kingdom of Saudi Arabia• Updating the Department’s vision and mission• Establishing the Planning Standards Database• Designing the Community Facilities Calculator• Editing & Designing “Urban Inertia: The Sustainability Corporate Brochure”

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Kingdom City, Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Suez Special Economic Zone, Arab Republic of Egypt

• Contributed to the revalidation of the Kingdom City Master Plan including: integration of the master plan within its context (relation to sea, existing development, and natural site components); compliance of the master plan with Jeddah’s local and KSA’s national planning codes (planning, building, and aviation codes); and, matching the suggested master planning concept and urban design principles with the consultant’s

proposed design• Kingdom City is a mixed-use development; the Master Plan is designed by HOK, Omrania & Associates, and IBI Group; the site area is 5,300,000 m2 designed to incorporate a resident population of 238,706 residents, a transient population of 155,497, and BUA of 12,376,600

• Contributed to the review of the Request for Proposal for a Master Plan of Suez SEZ, within the Strategic

Framework of the Suez Special Development Corridor

Proposal for Affordable Housing, KSA

• Contributed to the research and policy proposals for designing and constructing 500,000 affordable

residential housing units in 13 sites all over KSA

Computer massing model of Kingdom City, Jeddah (HoK+IBI+Omrania, 2009)

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Page 1 of 1SETS

2/20/2010http://www.sets-lb.com/

iga arcHiTecTUre & landscape design

HarboUr sQUare - beirUT

With gustafson porter, londoniga role: collaboration on the design development & supervision

The main concept in the design of Harbour square hangs in the re-interpretation of the square as a harbour and in defining areas perceived as water or land. The purpose of the harbour is to provide shelter to boats contained in the calm waters within. The interior space of the harbour is in constant motion. boats moored will constantly bob up and down in re-sponse to wave energy (albeit reduced within the sheltered harbour). boats will be coming and going constantly with loading and unloading of goods and people. boats will be spaced regularly within the harbour in an orderly fashion. The orientation of these will respond di-rectly to the way the tide is ‘flowing’ at that particular time.

a clean relationship needs to be established between these two elements from the start. The whole spatial organisation will depend on this idea right through from the broad sweep design gestures (large canopies stretching across the space appearing to ‘float’ on water) to the more detailed treatments of the materials themselves (varying qualities in paving such as pattern, colour and texture to reflect land/water thresholds).

• Contributed to the conceptual design of Tiara Island Development, BUA 1.5 million m2 Urban Development), Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

Urban DesignerSETS (Planning, Architecture, Interior Design Experts), Beirut, Lebanon

July 2008

• Reviewed the content and format of the urban design regulations for the Detailed Master Plan of ‘Hazmieh-SNA’ area, Lebanon

• Contributed to the local coordination of 3 urban landscape projects in the Beirut Central District, designed by Gustafson Porter Landscape (London) for SOLIDERE, including: Harbor Square, Saint Elie Garden and the Garden of Forgiveness

Imad Gemayel Architecture and Landscape Design,Beirut, Lebanon

July - August 2006 & March 2008

Computer night rendering of Tiara Island, Abu Dhabi (SETS, 2008)

Rendered drawings and diagrams of Harbor Square, Beirut (Gustafson Porter, 2006)

29

Part 4:Spatial & Design Consultancy

30

Mr. Fadi Shayya was a key member of a short neighborhood survey project I was charged with in summer of 2009. In this project, Mr. Shayya led a team of soon-to-graduate university students in conducting the survey over a period of 2 months. His mission was multifaceted and included:

• Assisting in developing the survey methodology by defining and elaborating its parameters;

• Preparing the base maps and data sheets which included defining the survey clusters and scheduling the work accordingly;

• Training the young team on- and off-site prior to the systematic procedure of survey;

• Managing the daily conduct of the survey, human and technical trouble-shooting, and compiling the data;

• Review and spot-checking of data;

• Liaising with designated GIS support on survey data mapping and processing;

• Compiling and assembly of final survey deliverables.

Fadi proved to be a most reliable and pleasant colleague. His professional competence and personal qualities were central to the smooth procedure of the survey, which took place under sensitive conditions (hot weather, urban security concerns, etc.). Mr. Shayya is clearly a knowledgeable scholar and a highly responsible professional. These are the ingredients of a very promising career in urban design.

Abdul-Halim Jabr, Architect/Urban Design Consultant

“

”

31

• Contributed to the study of the well being of Ras Beirut residents, including input for integrating a spatial component with study’s public health methodology,

training 28 field surveyors, setting up a GIS-compatible database, and developing descriptive maps

Spatial ConsultantThe Well Being Survey + The Neighborhood Initiative, AUB, Beirut, Lebanon

October 2009

• Contributed to the documentation and analysis of the built context of AUB, including designing the field survey, training six field surveyors, coordinating the

field survey, setting up a GIS-compatible database, and developing descriptive maps

The Neighborhood Initiative,AUB, Beirut, Lebanon

June - August 2009

Scale :1:3 000

Legend

Prevailing use

at street level

Residential (including hotels or furnished apartments)

Office/professional (bank, medical, travel agency, spa, etc…)

Retail (shops, showroom)

Leisure and Entertainment

Public (government)

Other (open parking, empty unit, or unable to identify)

No data

American University of BeirutThe Neighborhood Initiantive

Survey of the built environmentOctober 2009

Prevailing use at street level

Sample survey map with planned clusters (AUB, 2009)

Sample GIS output of NI survey (AUB, 2009)

32

• Conducted the study to propose a strategic design and management plan for creating a network of green public parks in five selected settlements of the Aley Region, within the framework of the Terrassa-Aley

Cluster partnership (sponsored by the Provincial Council of Barcelona), and in collaboration with Concepts Design (Zeina Salam & Leila Abi Khuzam)

• Conducted the study whose first phase includes researching potential channels of accreditation for the B.Sc. LDEM program, communicating with accrediting institutions abroad (IFLA/International, ASLA/USA, LI/UK), and deciding which is the most appropriate

framework for accreditation, taking into consideration AUB’s institutional framework. The second phase includes filling a draft Self-Evaluation Report of the B.Sc. LDEM program

Bureau Technique des Villes Libanaises (Cités et Gouvernements Locaux Unis), Beirut, Lebanon

June 2009

Department of Landscape Design & Ecosystem Management, AUB, Beirut, Lebanon

February - June 2009

Department of Architecture and Design,AUB, Beirut, Lebanon

February - July 2007

• Conducted the survey and authored the report that document users’ input for the renovation of the Architecture and Design building, including interviewing

faculty and students and surveying space usage and quality

A Park Trail of Natural & Cultural Heritage

Fadi Shayya, Zeina Salam, & Leila Abi Khuzam Page 14 of 32

Discussion

While the Aley Region is famous for its summer tourism, the region’s economic activity has almost strictly relied on residence rentals and entertainment services. The Park Trail is an unconventional yet contextual vision to strategically connect different areas of the region and to sustainably promote the local landscape character, being it natural heritage or rural/urban cultural heritage. The program and design of each park are conceived upon competencies grounded in the settlement’s cultural distinctiveness (agriculture, tourism, festivities, etc) and natural character (topography, flora, avifauna, etc).

The proposed Park Trail synergizes the scenic aesthetics, flora, fauna, and avifauna diversity, rural agricultural heritage, urban cultural heritage, and mixed tourist population of the region in a complex whole. Souk elGharb’s serene botanical garden and light activity space attracts nature lovers to discover the indigenous/native flora; Aley’s multicultural educational park and BDL locale advances education and awareness besides recreation for students, residents, and visitors; Ain elJdide’s symbolic cherry park attracts social groups and visitors to enjoy water, cherries, and events; Majd elBa’na’s grape vines park attracts youth, artists, and tourists to enjoy the cultural scene and grape vines; and, Shanay’s panoramic olive park invites locals and tourists to contemplate and enjoy local agrifood products.

Similar to their proposed programs, the proposed parks’ designs are unique yet contextual serving a permanent resident population and a seasonally visiting one. The designs are more of a process rather than a product, where spatial production does not stop upon executing each park’s design but continues to evolve with its users and function. This aspect of the design emphasizes the interactive natural-cultural relation that we propose to reclaim. In addition, associating landscape components, such as olive trees/agrifood and cherry trees/celebrations, emphasize the local/regional landscape character or what we tend to think of as strategic branding.

Souk elGharb Park:

Introduction to native flora

Aley Park: Aquaintance with regional

culture

Ain elJdide Park:

Aquaintance with local symbols

Majd elBa'na Park: Joining

the intercative

youth

Shanay Park: Conclusion of the day's tour

with the contemplative

horizon

33Collective for Research & Training on Development-Action, Beirut, Lebanon

Infographic Consultant

June - July 2009

• Designed 2 infographic spreads to represent the geopolitics of health and education faith-based organizations versus private and public service providers in Lebanon. The maps are based on data compiled by CRTD-A under the project “Faith, Social Activism, and Politics Research Project,” in partnership with International Development Research Center (IDRC); in collaboration with architects Lina Abou Reslan and Nancy Hamad

34

The Geopolitics of HealthFBO vs Private & Public Hospitals in Lebanon (CRTD-A, 2009)

35

The Geopolitics of EducationFBO vs Private & Public Schools in Lebanon (CRTD-A, 2009)

36

Detail of “The Geopolitics of Education” (CRTD-A, 2009)

39

Part 5:Critical Urban Practice

40

Fadi is a visionary on a mission. He actually gets things done, and published a brilliant call-to-action book against all odds. His passion and sincerity are what drives his intellect, which is insatiable.

Don’t stop, Fadi!

Hani Asfour, Architect/Founding Principal, Polypod

I am lucky to have worked with Fadi on refined, complex and constructive projects such as information graphics in ‘At the Edge of the City’ and the CRTD-A maps on the geopolitics of health and education in Lebanon. Inspiration radiates from his intrinsic belief in design value, discursive processes, articulate formations as well as public rights and spaces in Beirut. He is multi-tasking, multi-disciplinary and soulfully hard working with outstanding organization skills. With his fluent social skills, he is able to reach out to and empower everyone around him. Add to that an agile sense of humor and sincere passion at every stage of the work process. That is in short the experience of working with Fadi- a constant process of learning and collective uncovering of potential

Lina Abou Reslan, Architect/Founder, hirosaki

Fadi is a hardworking individual with a broad entrepreneurial vision. He is passionate about his career as a researcher, an architect, and an urban planner. Fadi is also a social advocate of sustainability and good governance among other causes.

Working with him revealed many good qualities, some of which are organization, accuracy, and perseverance, in addition to his ability to provide enthusiasm to his surrounding circles.

Danny Khoury, Graphic Designer

“

“

“

”

”

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41DISCURSIVE FORMATIONS critical think tank& research platform

Coordinator

DISCURSIVE FORMATIONS BLOG

Member of Steering Committee at {TINAG}

Organizer & Spokesperson at TEDxRamallah

The blog aspires to be a repository of imperfect conceptions, representations, and judgments about city spaces and urban landscapes. The main drive behind this platform is twofold: a “critical” interest (among editor and contributors) in re-understanding spatial cultures and re-defining spatial discourses in

Beirut and world cities of the Second Millennium; and, my personal work and thinking process toward future research on Beirut’s cultural geography and urbanism.

fadishayya.wordpress.com

This Is Not A Gateway {TINAG} creates platforms for critical projects and ideas related to cities. It was founded to address FOUR URGENT CONCERNS: 1) the need for accessible arenas for emerging practitioners, 2) the need for the development of new forms of urban citizenship, 3) the desire for interdisciplinary and cross-cultural exchange, and 4) the need to gather, to eat, to drink together, in a self-organized, informal and fruitful context.

TINAG’s four main areas of production are Salons, Annual Festival, Publications, Library, and archive. It is a not-for-profit organization registered in England and Wales (6415761) and established formally in July 2007 by Deepa Naik and Trenton Oldfield.

www.thisisnotagateway.net

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. The program is designed to give communities, organizations and individuals the opportunity to stimulate dialogue In this spirit, TEDxRamallah will showcase inspiring stories of Palestine, aiming to educate and inspire by providing a space for people to share their ideas in any field, whether science, education, literature, technology, design, etc. to contribute to the positive perception of Palestine.

Ramallah

www.tedxramallah.com

DISCURSIVE FORMATIONS is a Beirut-based critical think tank and research platform operating in the realms of spatial analysis and intervention of the built and unbuilt environment. Our work addresses issues of spatial culture, development politics, urban governance, spatial (un)justice, social structures, urbanization, landscape transformations, (un)sustainability, (un)public space, and formal aesthetics in areas of regional and urban planning, urban design and architecture, and landscape planning and design.

Firm Profile We believe in the inherency of the dimensions of space and place to human societies, specifically in urban contexts that are the milieu of social change, environmental transformation, and cultural production. Our work draws on Beirut’s complex and multi-faceted contemporary urban scene. We are culturally-critical, socially-oriented, and ecologically-aware in discourse and undertaking, and we adopt multidisciplinary approaches and methods in research.

www.discursiveformations.net

42

PULSE is Professionals of Urbanism, Landscape, and Spatial Environments in the Lebanon and the region. The idea behind PULSE Google Group is to connect professionals of spatial environments [urban planners, urban designers, landscape designers, architects, social scientists, and policy makers] in the Lebanon and the region and to promote communication and exchange among them for bettering spatial awareness and advancing the profession of spatial environments in the region.

PULSE Google Group (Professionals of Urbanism, Landscape, &

Spatial Environment)

DISCURSIVE READER

The reader is an attempt to compile and centralize published research resources (books, theses, articles, conference papers, reports, and websites/blogs) about urbanism and urbanization in the Lebanon. It covers

related disciplines of anthropology, architecture, art, cultural geography, economics, engineering, landscape, real-estate, regional planning, sociology, urban design, and urbanism.

The DISCURSIVE FORMATIONS library, Beirut (Shayya, 2009)

43

At the Edge of the City

At the Edge of the City is a contemporary critique of urban governance and spatial production in Beirut. The undertaking is advocating in scope, multidisciplinary in approach, and journalistic in style. The book is an edited volume on public space in Beirut, focused on the case of Beirut’s park Horsh Al-Sanawbar, hosting the original textual and visual works of over 25 scholars, professionals, journalists, activists, and artists. The book is supported by the Heinrich Böll Stiftung

(Middle East Office) and published by the DISCURSIVE FORMATIONS initiative. The 192-page volume (B&W + color) is rich in research, essays, photographs (historical, contemporary, and aerial), information graphics, and art work. Also, the book includes a poster (by Danny Khoury) and a documentary DVD (by Lasse Lau).

attheedgeofthecity.wordpress.com

DISCURSIVE TALKS is a series of unconnected events about space & design culture whose aim is to instigate critical thinking and produce alternative discourse. The series address issues like urbanism & architecture, landscape & ecologies, and communication & art; hosts

professionals & non-professionals, experts & amateurs, and scientists & artists; and, targets decision-makers and professionals of the built environment, mainly the new generations.

DISCURSIVE TALKS

45

Part 6:Development & International

Organizations Experience

47UN Economic & Social Commission for Western Asia,Beirut, Lebanon

Associate Officer

Aug 2007 – Jan 2008

• Prepared a conference document titled “Target 11 and the MDGs (Millennium Development Goals) in the Arab Countries: The ‘Urban Poor’ Window” for the Expert Group Meeting on Urban Governance

• Coordinated the preparation of the report “Status and Prospects of the Arab City”

• Assisted in the preparation of ToRs of 3 chapters for the report “Status and Prospects of the Arab City” including: “Urbanization and the Challenge of Slums,” “Effects of Globalization on the Sustainability of the Arab City,” and “The Effects of War and Conflict and the Challenges to Social Cohesion and Human Rights”

• Assisted in the preparation of ToRs of 2 studies for the Expert Group Meeting on Urban Governance, including: “Good Urban Governance and the Role of

Local Authorities” and “Set of Regional Indicators on Implementing Target 11 of the MDGs in the Arab Countries”

• Assisted in preparing the presentation “Social Policy ‘In the City’: A Critical and Comparative Overview of the SPC/SDD Team” for internal strategic planning

• Assisted in organizing and preparing the press file of the “Launching of the National Initiative for Secure Housing and Land Tenure and Good Urban Governance in Jordan,” Amman, 20-21 October 2007

• Assisted in organizing the “Expert Group Meeting on Urban Governance and the Millennium Development Goals, Towards Implementing MDGs’ Target 11: ‘Equitable Cities’,” Kuwait City, 10-12 December 2007

United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia

Exclusion from the City (agglomeration or proper?)

Poverty + Urbanization = Slums

URBAN POOR/SLUM Dwellers: MDGs CROSS-CUTTING ISSUES

Governance1. Political Will

2. Human Rights

3. Social Policy

4. Local Governance

MDGs: Goal 7, Target 11

Achieve significant improvementin lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers, by 2020

BUT

ESCWA is one of the five regional commissions created by the United Nations in order to fulfill the economic and social goals set out in the United Nations Charter by promoting cooperation and integration between the countries in each region of the world. Created in 1973, ESCWA includes 14 member countries in Western Asia: Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the Sudan, the Syrian Arab Republic, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen. ESCWA forms part of the United Nations Secretariat and, like the other regional commissions, operates under the supervision of the United Nations Economic and Social Council.

Organization Profile ESCWA provides a framework for the formulation and harmonization of sectoral policies for member countries, a platform for congress and coordination, a home for expertise and knowledge, and an information observatory. ESCWA activities are coordinated with the divisions and main offices of the Headquarters of the United Nations, specialized agencies, and international and regional organizations, including the League of Arab States, the Organization of the Islamic Conference, and the Gulf Cooperation Council.

http://www.escwa.un.org/

MDGs and the Urban Poor diagram (UNESCWA, 2007)

48

Environmental activism in the Mediterranean Sea near Tripoli, Lebanon (Shayya, 2008)

49

Planning ConsultantAUB + UN-Habitat, Beirut, Lebanon

Jul 2007

• Compiled the report “Post-war Reconstruction Guidelines and Standardization: An Overview” as background material for launching the workshop “Good

Governance for Enhanced Post-war Reconstruction in Southern Lebanon”

Field CoordinatorConsultation and Research Institute + World Bank,Beirut, Lebanon

Feb 2006

Expert IntervieweeUN-Habitat’s State of the World’s Cities Report 2012/13:The Prosperity of Cities

Jun 2011

• Coordinated the field survey of the Aley City for the World Bank’s City Development Strategy (CDS) Project in Lebanon, including interviewing community and

business stakeholders, collecting statistical data on the city, and coordinating with the municipality

• The SWCR synthesizes information and knowledge on the state of the world’s cities to formulate effective urban policies. The SWCR 2012/13 adopts the main theme: The Prosperity of Cities with particular focus

on five key dimensions: Quality of Life, Productivity, Infrastructure Development, Equity, and Environmental Sustainability. (from www.unhabitat.org)

51

Part 7:Architecture

& Design Practice

53Architect

Chakib Richani Architects, Beirut, Lebanon

Jul – Aug 2004

Spectrum Engineering Consultants, Beirut, Lebanon

Mar – Dec 2003

• Contributed to the design of a beach House in Bausher, Oman

• Conceptualized the preliminary design proposal for a high-tech national landmark tower in Al-Seef District (70 storey-high tower/composite program: shopping mall, entertainment, offices, hotel), Manama, Kingdom of Bahrain

• Contributed to the design of:

- Sheikh Fahed Bin Abed al-Aziz and Sons Private Residential Complex (1 main mansion and three surrounding villas), Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

- Al-Wakri International Printing Press HQ, Kuwait City, Kuwait

- General Directorate of State Security HQ, Nahr Beirut, Lebanon

- 40-Storey Offices Tower in the Central Commercial Area, Kuwait City, Kuwait

• Coordinated the architectural, structural & electro-mechanical execution drawings of:

- General Directorate of State Security HQ, Nahr Beirut, Lebanon

- Public School 7 of Beirut (lots 288-287-289-2540 Ras Beirut/pre-elementary, elementary, intermediate and secondary/40 class rooms/1320 student)

- Public School 5 of Beirut (lot 5985 Mazraa/intermediate and secondary/36 class rooms/1188 students)

- Public School 30 of Beirut (Sabra)

- Public School of Shouwiefat, Shouwiefat, Lebanon

- Public School 12a of Bebnine, Akar, Lebanon

- Public School 12b of Bouday, Baalbek, Lebanon

Computer massing model of Bausher House (CRA, 2004)

Scale model of the General Directorate of State Security HQ (Spectrum, 2003)

54

• Contributed to the design of 2 residential projects in Beirut, including: 1311 Mazraa and 4816 Mousaitbeh

• Contributed to the design of a private villa in Egypt• Prepared interior execution drawings of the Shebaro Private Apartment, Beirut

Nabil A. Itani Engineering Consultants,Beirut, Lebanon

Feb 2003

Global Engineering and Business,Beirut, Lebanon

Jul 2002 – Jan 2003

One of Beirut’s public schools under construction (Spectrum, 2003)

55Consultant Architect

Café Younes, Beirut, Lebanon

2009

• Designed and prepared the execution drawings of outdoor space and furniture for a sidewalk café, Hamra; in collaboration with architect Nancy Hamad

Deutshe Schule, Dawha, Lebanon

2004

• Designed and prepared the execution drawings of outdoor spaces (playgrounds, amphitheater, shaded gathering areas) for the Deutsche Schule, Dawha; in collaboration with artist Raghed Shamseddean

Computer massing and diagrams of Café Younes (Shayya, 2009)

57

Part 9:Public & Academic Interaction

59Participations

Talks, Panels, & Presentations

Invited Juror

2011 Affordable Housing Development Summit, 19-22 June 2011, Muscat, Oman

2010 3rd TINAG Festival, 22-24 October 2010, This Is Not A Gateway, United Kingdom

2009 PhD Seminar on Public Space, 19-20 March 2009, Delft University of Technology, Netherlands

2008 Basil Fuleihan Innovative Good Governance Competition, Basil Fuleihan Foundation, Lebanon

2006 5th FEA Student Conference, 17-18 May 2006, American University of Beirut, Lebanon

2003 The Archiprix International – Istanbul 2003 “Worldwide Biennial Presentation of the World’s Best Graduation Projects of Architecture, Urban Design, and Landscape Architecture,” 14-19 June 2003, Istanbul Technical University, Turkey

School of Architecture and Design, Lebanese American University8 June 2011: Final Jury, 234/Design Studio 2B (with Hani Asfour)

21 April 2011: Interim Jury, 234/Design Studio 2B (with Hani Asfour)

Department of Landscape Design and Ecosystem Management, American University of Beirut26 January 2009: Final Jury, 204/Ecological Landscape Design I (with Julie Weltzien)

15 December 2008: Interim Jury, 204/Ecological Landscape Design I (with Julie Weltzien)

“What about the Future of Green spaces in Beirut?” Forum Session, 6 May 2011, Green line NGO

“The Grass Is Never Greener Except on the Other Side!” Book Launch, 23 October 2010, This Is Not A Gateway (London)

“On Knowledge Production & the Creative Process: Reflections on the Unfolding of At the Edge of the City,” Discussion, 15 September 2010, Polypod Creative Series

“Municipal Governance & Social Perceptions of Public Space in Beirut,” Lecture, 5 September 2010, Nahnoo NGO

“Public Space, Environment, Citizenship, & Good Governance,” Panel (Introduction to Environmental Science Seminar), 20 August 2010, Lebanese American University

“An Ambitious Policy Agenda for Green Open Spaces in Lebanese Cities (GOS),” Press Conference (Access to Rights, Rights to Resources Campaign), 11 June 2010, Green Line NGO

“The Aggressive Nature of Urban Public Space,” Lecture, 8 June 2010, Institute of Fine Arts, Lebanese University

“At the Edge of the City: Policy Implications for Public Space in Beirut,” Panel, 31 May 2010, Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy & International Affairs, AUB

“At the Edge of the City,” Book Launch, 30 April 2010, Sunflower Cultural Center

“Christoph Görg’s ‘Landscape Governance’,” Lecture (LDEM 296 Landscape Seminar), 11 May 2009, AUB

“The ELA Methodology in Lebanon,” Talk (LDEM 296 Landscape Seminar), 23 February 2009, AUB

“Thesis Research,” Talk (URPL 630 Social Research Methods), 18 November 2008, AUB

“SOLIDERE or Wasat Beirut? Complexities of Politics, Space, and Place,” Discussion, July 2008, Nahwa Al-Muwatiniya NGO

“The ELA Methodology in Urban Planning,” Talk (URDS 664 Ecological Landscape Design & Planning), 23 April 2008, AUB

“Horsh Al-Sanawbar: An Urban Landscape,” Lecture (LDEM 246 Landscape Design III), 20 February 2008, AUB

60 Organizing Member

Features & Citations

City Debates Annual Seminar, “Spaces for the Rich: Citizen/Consumer Practices in Affluent Beirut,” 11-13 May 2006, AUB, Lebanon

City Debates Annual Seminar, “Urban Heritage and the Politics of the Present: Perspectives from the Middle East,” 6-26 April 2005, AUB, Lebanon

Assisted Dr. George Arbid in co-organizing the exhibition “Architectural Education in the Arab World” with the Arab Architects Association/Federation of Arab Engineers, held at the Beirut Association of Engineers and Architects, 23-25 March 2006, Beirut, Lebanon

Citations:Larkin, Craig. “Remaking Beirut: Contesting Memory, Space, and the Urban Imaginary of Lebanese Youth.” City &

Community 4.9 (2010): 414-442.Ghaddar, Hanin. “The Pine Forest.” Now Lebanon. July 31, 2007.Harb, Mona. “Deconstructing Hizballah and Its Suburb.” Middle East Report Spring, no. 242 (2007): 12-17.

Thanks in academic theses and projects:Heyck, Harry and Nicolas Burckhardt. “Dahiyah” The South-western Suburbs of Beirut: An Eclectic Microcosm. The

Middle East Studio / Wintersemester 2009. Basel: ETH Studio Basel Contemporary City Institute, 2009.Friberg, Thomas. Beirut’s Blue Line. Travel Stipend to Lebanon April / May 2006. Zürich: Erich Degen Stiftung, ETH,

2008.Andraos, Rana. Neoliberal Planning and the Politics of Public Space: The Case of Martyrs’ Square in Beirut’s

Downtown. Thesis. Beirut: American University of Beirut, 2008.Summer, Doris. Neoliberalizing the City: the Circulation of City Builders and Urban Images in Beirut and Amman.

Thesis. Beirut: American University of Beirut, 2005.

Thanks in publications:Salman, Lana. Anchoring the Tripoli Special Economic Zone: Towards Enhancing Backward and Forward Linkages

with the Host Economy. Policy Study. Beirut: Presidency of the Council of Ministers, 2009.Harb, Mona and Mona Fawaz. “Influencing the Politics of Reconstruction in Haret Hreik.” Lessons in Post-War

Reconstruction: Case Studies from Lebanon in the Aftermath of the 2006 War. Ed. Howayda Al-Harithy. London & New York: Routledge, 2010. 21-45.

Fawaz, Mona, ed. “Urban Heritage and the Politics of the Present: Perspectives from the Middle East.” Proceedings

Fadi Shayya at the TINAG 2010 festival, London (Williams, 2010)

61of the 2005 City Debates. Beirut: AUB Press, 2006.Istanbul 2003 and Rotterdam 2001. Edited by Henk van der Veen, Ferhan Yurekli and Nihal Arlat. Compiled by

Archiprix International. Rotterdam: 010 Publishers, 2004.

Thanks in media:Future News (FTV). Zakirat Makan. Future Television. Beirut. May19, 2009.Pine Nuts. Directed by Lasse Lau. 2008. Presented at the 2008 Lebanese Film Festival 7th Edition.

Broadcast media features:Burchill, Kristen Hope. “Redefining Beirut’s Cityscape: A New Generation of Ethical Designers & Architects are

Challenging Conventions.” LAU Magazine Fall 2010: 30-32.Wilson-Goldie, Kaelen. “A psychogeographic tour through Beirut.” 5 August 2010. The National. 10 August 2010.Al-Khoury, Sanaa. “La Forêt des pins, un havre en marge de la cité.” Les Hirondelles 16 June 2010: 6.Cusack, Robert. “Lebanon’s 2020 clean-energy goals costly but needed.” The Daily Star 12 June 2010.“Green Line presents alternatives to sieze environmental violations.” Al-Mustaqbal 12 June 2010: 7.Kontar, Bassam. “’Green Line’ exposes Lebanon’s environmetal crises.” Al-Akhbar 12 June 2010.“Release of Environmental Brochures.” Sada Al-Balad 12 June 2010.Nasrallah, Jad. “Fadi Shayya: About a ‘park’ that used to be Beirut’s Lungs.” Al-Akhbar 30 April 2010: 17.Nash, Matt. “Pining for a Forested Past.” Now Lebanon. April 22, 2010.Interview by Sobhiya Najjar. “Earthquakes in Lebanon.” Akhdar Azrak. Future Television. Beirut. February 2, 2010.“From Woods to Park: A Historical & Ethnographic Investigation of Programming the Landscape of Horsh Al-

Sanawbar.” Landscape December 2009: 26-30.Interview by Sobhiya Najjar. “Green Public Spaces in Beirut.” Akhdar Azrak. Future Television. Beirut. August 18,

2009.Interview by Dalila Mahdawi. “Beirut municipality halts plans to build parking lots under gardens.” The Daily Star.

June 02, 2009.Interview by Future News. “On Basil Fuleihan and the BFIGG Award.” Morning News. Future Television. Beirut.

April 19, 2008.Interview by Marcel Ghanem. “Special Episode: A Tribute to Basil Fuleihan.” Kalam El-Nass. Lebanese Broadcasting

Company. Adma. April 17, 2008.Interview by Future News. “Aga Khan Award 2007 for the Samir Kassir Square in Beirut.” Morning News. Future

Television. Beirut. September 19, 2007.

On-line media features:“Horsh Beirut: Where people from different backgrounds can come together.” Lebanese American University. 30

August 2010.Heinrich Böll Stiftung – Middle East Office. Environmental Justice. April 2010. 2010 April 2010.Zurayk, Rami. “Al Horch.” Land and People. December 18, 2008.“Environment.” Al-Mashriq (The Levant). January 2007.

The Archiprix International 2003 workshop, Istanbul (Shayya, 2003)

62Community Service

2009-2011 World Alumni Association of the American University of Beirut, Lebanon Acting as Member of the International Council

Jul - Aug 2009 Civil Society Organizations Forum (Independent Initiative), Lebanon Invited to a forum initiative of leading civil society NGOs and individuals to strengthen cooperation and maximize output efficiency of civil society in Lebanon

2004 Village Welfare Society (CBO), Lebanon Prepared a PowerPoint presentation about the history of VWS for a seminar honoring Lebanese activist women on the International Women’s Day

2004 Baalshmay Community Center (CBO), Lebanon Prepared a PowerPoint presentation about Al-Muntada accomplishments for a fund raising event to build Al-Muntada main premises

2004-2005 Social Work League (CBO), Lebanon Acted as Board Member and organized fundraising events to provide hardship university scholarships

1997-1998 Youth Division, Lebanese Red Cross (INGO), Lebanon Organized social support events and health-awareness campaigns

1996 B2 Group, Lebanese Boy Scouts Association (CSO), Lebanon Provided relief for the displaced people from Southern Lebanon to Beirut during the 1996 military aggression on Lebanon

Fadi Shayya serving with the Lebanese Red Cross, Beirut (Unknown, 1997)

63Affiliations

Registered Architect Consultant (# 28043), Beirut Association

of Engineers and ArchitectsSince 2004

World Alumni Association of the American University of Beirut (WAAAUB)

Since 2007

65

Part 10:Appendices

67

2.1. On the ‘Urban’ in Urban DesignThe unrelenting concern with the urban is a key facet of this thesis: the research questions the urban in urban design and explores ecology-based approaches that tie urban design to urbanization and human settlements rather than to defined geographies of city, town and village.

The term urban is associated with the process of urbanization. Manuel Castells distinguishes two distinct understandings -among others- of urbanization: first, “the spatial concentration of a population on the basis of certain limits of dimension and density”1; second, “the diffusion of the system of values, attitudes and behavior called ‘urban culture’”2. The first is a demographic understanding of a statistical nature that is not valid anymore without considering the complex socio-economic relations, systems of governance, and spatial organization and form3. The second is a social understanding where urbanization is associated with ‘urban culture’ such as “contract (urban) vs. status (rural) foundation,” “mechanical (urban) vs. organic (rural) association,” and Marx’s “private (urban) vs. communal (rural) property”4. While the first demographic understanding is outdated, the social understanding of urbanization implies that the urban is not about a formal or geographic aspect but a human settlement with a comprehensive set of cultural values, social behavior and practices.

The social understanding of urbanization is mainly a result of analyzing Western, post-industrial cultural and spatial transformations where Henri Lefebvre argues that an ‘urban society’ is one “that results from industrialization, which is a process of domination that absorbs agricultural production”5. According to Lefebvre, the ‘absorption of agricultural production’ is a change in the mode of production in parallel with a concentration of population6. But, where does this urban population concentration materialize spatially?

The UN-Habitat7 defines an urban agglomeration as a “built-up or densely populated area containing the city proper, suburbs and continuously settled commuter areas” while a metropolitan area is “the set of formal local government areas that normally comprise the urban area as a whole and its primary commuter areas”8. Accordingly, urban sprawl becomes “the spreading of urban developments (as houses and shopping centers) on undeveloped land near a city”9. However, Lefebvre argues that “the urban fabric grows, extends its borders, corrodes the residue of agrarian life” where urban fabric “does not narrowly define the built world of cities but all manifestations of the dominance of the city over the country” such as ‘a vacation home’ or ‘a highway supermarket in the countryside’10.

So, the urban in this thesis should be read as a social

understanding of a set of cultural value system, behavior and practices that manifest themselves in everyday life that is spatially dispersed in the landscape in human settlements that are not necessarily cities. The urban is then a quality of the landscape while urbanization is a process. For this reason, urban design becomes an interesting intervention tool in urban agglomerations and on urban fabric where urbanization is a process of the landscape that transforms it qualitatively. However, the new extended coverage of urban design over the landscape requires the exploration and testing of new, responsive analyses, understanding and interventions in new conceptual and methodological frameworks. But, what is the conceptual entry point for this process?

2.2. Ecology: An Ideology for the Environmental Design ProfessionsEcology is the study of the relations of living communities with their natural environment. Abiotic, biotic and human-made components interact to form complex entities known as Ecosystems. The concept of ecosystem is useful in identifying almost homogeneous patches of an area under study to better understand the rationale of interaction of its components, which maintain an optimum state of balance and curb environmental degradation. Even in cases of severe impact that leads to major change, an ecosystem, especially a natural one, possesses the characteristic of resilience, or what Ken Yeang calls a “self-correcting ability.”11 It resists change by means of new adaptations that preserve the ecosystem’s integrity without cyclical returns to pristine states. This is the case of the Mediterranean natural ecosystem evolving from forest to maquis. Observations and descriptions based on ecology and ecosystems allow a researcher of the physical environment to better understand relations or associations among abiotic, biotic and human-made components and their relative context to provide informed interventions and achieve long-term environmental sustainability.

In the early beginnings of natural sciences during the nineteenth century, ecology gradually evolved and had increasing impact in many fields. Ecological understanding, for example, exerted a considerable influence since the mid-twentieth century on what Makhzoumi identifies as the environmental design professions, i.e. architecture, urban planning, urban and landscape design12. With growing awareness of environmental degradation and resources’ deterioration, concepts like ecosystems and biodiversity in ecology and landscape ecology came to guide design in many of these fields. Nature came to be understood as a living medium not a static resource, i.e. a dynamic, evolving system. In Ian Mcharg’s words, “we live in a physical world, a biological world, and a social world, and our investigation must include them all”13.

Appendix 1MUD Thesis Excerpt

Chapter 2: Theoretical Framework

68 Today new sustainable methods of development and resources management are taking precedence over outdated, top-down planning. According to Karl Marx, ideology is an “unaware expression of the underlying ideas and beliefs which attach to a particular social situation;”14 so, a crucial and satisfactory argument would support designers to consider ecology as an ideology rather than a source of prescriptions for a more ‘natural place’ to find and utilize phenomenological forms of ecology together with the prevalent scientific dimensions associated with the large scale of global environmental degradation15.

2.3. The Holistic LandscapeEssential and complementary to the concepts of ecology and ecosystems is the idea of landscape as a holistic entity of natural, semi-natural and cultural components. The holistic landscape comprises a number of interacting ecosystems rather than the common definition of landscape as natural scenery or designed vegetation16. While land is “physical and relate[d] to place”17 having to do with “soil, ground, territory”18 where anyone who owns it decides what will be the use of it, “landscape…is a perceivable part of the earth’s surface, which is regarded as common heritage” that is characterized by “natural, cultural and aesthetic qualities” and that acts as the interface between human-made and natural processes20

Ecological understanding of landscape implies that it is more than the sum of its components; it is a conglomeration of interacting ecosystems, following Forman and Gordon, Naveh and Lieberman, Makhzoumi, Makhzoumi and Pungetti and Yeang. In a chapter on landscape principles, Forman and Gordon trace the change of meanings of Ecology over time from a science that deals with natural processes to a holistic conceptual understanding of nature and its components, including humans and their cultural and physical manifestations21. They adopt an ecological view of landscape as a group of ecosystems possessing structures and continuously interacting and changing, and they argue that human impacts on landscape produce abrupt boundaries that eliminate gradual change22.

Based on the same conceptualization of landscape and ecology, Naveh and Lieberman, in a chapter on the conservation of landscapes, define the problem of ecological degradation in the Mediterranean as the increasing mass recreation and tourism, and they call for urgent ecologically sound strategies of landscape conservation, restoration and management23. This urgency is important because “a Middle Eastern concept of ‘landscape’ is experiential”24; that is, landscape is part of the Mediterranean’s general culture as Makhzoumi argues25. This ‘experiential’ characteristic of the Mediterranean landscape is reflected in spatial arrangements of settlements and typologies of physical forms with respect to natural components of geomorphology, hydrology and land cover. This creates what I will refer to as the ‘local landscape character’.

Landscapes can have economic values (setting for economic activity and development), social and community values (part of a community’s present and/or past life, a sense of identity, heritage), and environmental values (habitat for wildlife, repository of genetic and species diversity)26. In summary, Landscape

is27:

• the outcome of people and environment in co-evolution

• the tangible, product of the act of shaping and intangible, process of making sense of surroundings through shared meanings and values

• in the relationship between people and place, ‘landscape’ and not ‘environment’ has come to expresses ‘the cultural dimension’ of the world we live in

Landscape in a holistic, dynamic ecological interpretation is responsive to context and purpose, inclusive of natural and cultural systems, integrating change as an evolutionary necessity. It therefore breaks with the formal interpretation of static, pictorial compositions that prioritize visual experiences, fail to appreciate process/ecosystems, and denude landscape of its cultural/symbolic dimensions28.

2.4. Challenging Conventional Urban Design

Urban design has reached a dead end. Estranged both from substantial theoretical debate and from the living reality of the exponential and transformative growth of the world’s cities, it finds itself pinioned between nostalgia and inevitabilism, increasingly unable to inventively confront the morphological, functional, and human needs of cities and citizens. While the task grows in urgency and complexity, the disciplinary mainstreaming of UD [urban design] has transformed it from a potentially broad and hopeful conceptual category into an increasingly rigid, restrictive, and boring set of orthodoxies.

Michael Sorkin29

Now that the urban -as the set of cultural value system, behavior and practices- is understood as the intrinsic quality of landscape under urbanization, a non-exhaustive but critical investigation of urban design provides us with the necessary arguments for embracing environment, landscape and ecology into a more inclusive and responsive approach to design in Lebanese urban mountain settlements.

In a review of urban design approaches over the past twenty years since 1998, Clara Greed and Marion Roberts argue that literature on urban design theory and practice-in the North American context-commonly emphasized that urban design strategically deals with relationships between the built environment and subsequent open spaces (cultural/natural, public/private) and promotes an agenda of creating high-quality, functional, aesthetic, manageable and sustainable urban spaces utilizing principles of context, empowerment and stewardship30. Back in 1994, Alan Rowley defines urban design as “an approach and a response to processes of urban change and development” mainly concerned with the public realm and interested in providing “‘good’ urban spaces and places”31.

Both Greed-Roberts and Rowley’s definitions of urban

69design explicitly focus on the physical qualities of public, open urban spaces -mainly city spaces- and the socio-spatial involvement of citizens in embracing their city spaces sustainability as social, economic and political arenas. However, this value-loaded view of ‘good’ urban spaces does not respond to emerging complexities of the urban.

In his 2002 critique of Western, North-American and European contemporary theoretical and practice undertakings of urban design, Aseem Inam describes the field of urban design as “vague because it is an ambiguous amalgam of several disciplines, including architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning and civil engineering.”32 He even goes as far as describing contemporary Western urban design as “superficial” because of its glorification of physical form and its association -especially in practice- with architecture, which implies a product rather than a process. Consequently, Inam calls for a more “meaningful…approach to urban design” that is ‘teleological, catalytic, and relevant’. A purpose-driven approach contributes to long-term socio-economic development and relates to human values33 moving away from the manifestation of physical form and focusing on the urban in urban design34.

Despite Inam’s refusal of the formal and picturesque, architecture-like and his emphasis on the interdisciplinary approach and socio-economic and political mechanism processes35, he misses a very important component, i.e. nature.

As the urban becomes more complex transcending geographical boundaries of cities and as ecological and environmental situations establish new binding concerns about the relation of human development, urbanization and the holistic landscape, there are alternative models for urbanism emerging “that are open to and encourage participation by all citizens” instead of nostalgia for “lost models of public space”36. The focus became the ‘metropolitan landscape’ a concept that originated in the late 19th century with Patrick Geddes who argued that “cities and their regions were interdependent”37.

In 2003, Mohsen Mostafavi argues for a ‘landscape urbanism’ framework that deals with large-scale, metropolitan territory and addresses issues of ‘private/public ownership’ and ‘utilitarian/pleasurable responsibilities’ instead of contemporary urban design’s “series of isolated, privately owned set pieces”38. Complementarily, James Corner defines landscape urbanism as “understanding the full mix of ingredients that comprise a rich urban ecology” in a complex context of “market-based real-estate, community activism, environmental issues and short-term political mindsets” that traditional urban planning and urban design failed to respond to39. Hubert Murray contends that, “the driving force for landscape urbanism as a movement is the conviction that the modern metropolis is now so complex that it is beyond the scope of any one of the traditionally defined design disciplines and indeed beyond design itself, at least the source of physical solutions to major challenges”40.

Mostafavi, Corner and Murray’s ‘landscape urbanism’ is concerned -as a new (multi-)discipline- with reading and intervening on new urban complexities that are parts of a whole metropolitan landscape in a context

of short term, elected/appointed, political mandates in the city. But whether it responds or not to such metropolitan complexities, the ecological and design question has not been addressed fully by ‘landscape urbanism’ outside the metropolitan realm where rural-to-urban evolution is as important as any other administrative, political process. The environmental professions are as complex as human settlements are, therefore there is still need for a new landscape-approach ‘urban design mindset’41 (relative to the metropolitan ‘landscape urbanism’) comprehensive of reading and intervening on urban (city and non-city) human settlements and inclusive of human and nature values and processes.

This explains the importance in this research to ground urban design in ecological theory and principles where landscape in not a mere tool of beautifying public space but rather a holistic approach to the design and management of natural and cultural resources42. Design is understood as a holistic process of “conceiving and shaping complex systems” 43 that contribute to “shaping of the environment” 44 where “ecological sciences provide the knowledge and guidance” and “design provides creative solutions”45. This understanding responds to the interactive relation of natural and cultural components and processes of the landscape to produce “form”46, i.e. “patterns of relationships” in Christopher Alexander’s words47.

Such is the case in the Toronto Downsview Park’s international competition final entry design proposals that responded to a design brief asking the competitors “to design for fluctuations over time in ecosystem conditions and human use, while creating a significant cultural work in an urban space”48. This responsiveness to natural and human-made processes in Toronto “established a new standard in contemporary expectations for urban design”49. While the 1970 Master Plan of Saoufar remains a static framework conceived in a past temporal context with a limited set of guidelines and regulations for spatial intervention and institutional facilitation, new urban design approaches based in ecology and on landscape are expected to be dynamic and responsive to change just like landscapes that are “the perceivable expressions of dynamic interactions between the physical and material environment and natural and cultural forces”50.

As this theoretical debate on urban design started, it will end with a quote from Michael Sorkin, who argues that,

Urban design needs to grow beyond its narrowly described fixation on the ‘quality’ of life to include its very possibility. This will require a dramatically broadened discourse of effects that does not establish its authority simply analogically or artistically but that is inculcated with the project of enhancing equity and diversity and of making a genuine contribution to the survival of the planet.

Michael Sorkin51

2.5. Ecological Landscape Design

In their book Ecological Landscape Design and Planning: The Mediterranean Context, Makhzoumi

70 and Pungetti highlight the fact that reference has often been made to Western-North American and European-theoretical and practical knowledge about landscape and related problems and solutions. They argue for the necessity of a theoretical and practical framework to work on Mediterranean, specifically Middle Eastern Landscapes. Even more, Makhzoumi argues for an Ecological Landscape Design Paradigm where ecological landscape design is not seen as a mere method that can replace existing methods but as a conceptual understanding within a whole process of thinking and learning, i.e. ecological thinking. In this sense, Ecological Landscape Design is a holistic approach that re-employs intuition and the senses besides rational, objective, scientific knowledge and methods to better understand landscapes in the form of natural-cultural interactions52. As for its design part, ecological landscape design seeks to learn about and from the resilience of ecosystems, i.e. their ability to challenge, change and adapt, and it pushes for sustainable solutions to imbalances that breach ecological integrity. Ecological landscape Design is operationalized through the methodologies Ecohistory, or Ecological History, that traces the historical evolution of a landscapes and Ecological Landscape Associations (ELA) that reveals structures and interactions of different landscape components.

2.5.1. Significance of Approach• Landscape is holistic…to tackle more than land

use and density of the 1970 Master Plan including biodiversity and cultural landscape transformations

• Past and present process (evolution)…to recognize the temporal scale and the continuity of landscape over time

• Settlement relation to the outlying region (hierarchy)…to view natural and cultural spatial processes in Saoufar as part of a regional and national networking context

• Is inclusive of land/resources and people/livelihoods…to determine the socio-economic viability of Saoufar and connect the community to major stakes in the place/region through an inclusive framework

• Considers core and periphery…to understand the relation between the historic core , the urban sprawl (urban cultural heritage) and the rural periphery (rural cultural and natural heritage) so as to connect the landscape and promote identity

2.5.2. Methodological Framework: EcohistoryIn any specific area, there exists a specific landscape character which is the interaction of nature and culture of that area. This landscape and what it entails is always the product of evolutionary processes of nature and humans and the interaction with each other over time. In the case of nature, the temporal scale is usually large and can stretch over thousands of years such as is the case of the Mediterranean Forest evolving to Maquis53. However, this change is not independent from human activity. Humans are always squandering more of nature because of population increase, and they are always exploiting more natural resources to support their technological advancement. But still, nature finds a way of challenging and adapting to the new conditions because of the resilience of its

ecosystems. Of course, this is not the case in over-exploited sites where degradation is prevalent.

To “relate nature to society”54, I will adopt the methodological framework of Ecohistory. It is this evolutionary perspective of ecological interaction between natural processes and components of the landscape and human social and economic practices in that same landscape that I will use in my research rather than a descriptive historical approach. In my case study in Saoufar, the cultural landscape is prevailing and very visible in its natural context, so within the ecological evolutionary perspective, I will analyze the production of space as the result of social and economic processes. The production process is inseparable from evolutionary development.

2.5.3. Methodological Framework: Ecological Landscape Associations (ELA)With an underlying understanding of landscape as a dynamic and complex system, Ecological Landscape Associations is a methodological framework that is both conceptual and operational (investigational)55. Conceptually, ELA are a form of associating temporal (evolutionary) and spatial (hierarchical) interactions of landscape components at different scales (local and regional), which reveals the underlying structure of the landscape56. Structuring the landscape helps understand its ecological integrity and, consequently, convert this understanding into design solutions responsive to regional natural and cultural requirements that maintain landscape sustainability and ensure ecological stability57. Makhzoumi argues that “the term association is used to reflect the integrative and interactive relations discerned among two or more landscape components, namely the abiotic, biotic and the cultural” while the term ecological signifies the complex understanding of landscape through a “holistic, hierarchical and evolutionary approach”58.

“Founded upon the theory of tacit learning,” ELA are flexible to be applied to any scale of the landscape as a “conceptual tool for structuring the landscape…similar to some creative solving techniques”59. As an investigative methodological framework, ELA helps in: 1) establishing an ecological understanding of the landscape, 2) locating the ecological landscape associations, and 3) determining the location pattern of the associations, that is the spatial pattern of the landscape60. I will employ this investigative method in my research to find the components of the natural and cultural landscapes in Saoufar.

Procedures for the interactive investigative framework61:

• Researching available records, archives, published literature, existing surveys and statistics

• Reviewing available cartographic surveys of physical and biological resources (e.g. Geology, topography, soils, hydrology and vegetative cover)

• Providing firsthand knowledge of the landscape by conducting field surveys in different locations (natural, semi-natural, rural cultural and contemporary landscape)

• Providing information through informal interviews (while field surveying), and interviews with local and national administrators

71• Undertaking floristic surveys to determine the biological diversity of selected landscape components

• Procedures for the conceptual framework62:

• assessing the causes and consequences of landscape transformation

• evaluating sustainable alternatives for future landscape development

• defining the landscape design objectives (the maintenance of landscape integrity, sustainability and enhancing the character of place)

• developing the conceptual regional design model (integrate contemporary development into the existing landscape while maintaining long term sustainability, conserving biological and landscape diversity and enhancing the regional landscape character)

2.6. A Critically Comparative Case Study: The Kyrenia Region, CyprusMakhzoumi’s research in Cyprus, investigating ecological landscape design and ELA lies at the basis of her book, with Gloria Pungetti, Ecological Landscape Design and Planning: The Mediterranean Context (1999). The application of ELA is tested on both a regional scale, i.e. the Kyrenia Region, and a local scale, i.e. Dik Burun. Despite the scale difference between the Kyrenia Region case study and the case study of Saoufar, this research relies on investigating the regional model as the main model and inspiration for strategic thinking using ELA.

The Kyrenia Region in the north of Cyprus stretches along the Kyrenia Range with an area of 3,298km2 and a population of 181, 363 inhabitants63 and a “predominantly agro-pastoral society”64. Makhzoumi reads the multiple abiotic, biotic and cultural layers of the Kyrenia Region landscape using the ELA methodology to builds a ‘conceptual design model’65 of the regional landscape. Set in a geomorphological setting of mountains, foothills, cliffs, plains and ravines, the forests, maquis, Olive and Carob tree planting, and rural/urban settlements are understood as the components of associations of the ‘conceptual design model’ and the landscape components of the Kyrenia Region.

“Landscapes are composed of patterns and processes at different scales that interact”66. In the Kyrenia Region model, Makhzoumi applies ELA to both regional and local scales of the landscape, Kyrenia Region and Dik Burun respectively. It is this alternation between the two scales, local and regional, that reveals the historical evolution and interaction between different components of the landscape in the Kyrenia Region and helps propose dynamic, interactive policies on the regional scale or interventions on the local scale. The larger regional context of Saoufar falls beyond the scope of this research. Nevertheless, Saoufar is considered in relation to its context of Lebanese mountain settlements culture and social practices, dynamic real-estate market, and increasing development and urbanization. This scale-alternating research process helps understand Saoufar in the context of all affecting dynamics rather than scaling it down to its administrative (legal/municipal) boundaries. Of course, the proposed intervention is presented at the end of

this research within Saoufar’s administrative (legal/municipal) boundaries for mere bureaucratic reasons, but with recommendations for connections with the continuous landscape.

The design framework of the ELA helps Makhzoumi propose a multiplicity of interventions ranging from direct protection and conservation of the natural landscape to encouraging tourist development and urbanization to serve human needs. Simultaneously, regionalism and sustainability are achieved as part of the larger scope of ELA investigation and design frameworks.

This framework of respecting the historical continuity and working with the dynamic evolution of the holistic landscape deeply influenced and inspired me to adopt ecological landscape design as a theoretical framework and ecological landscape association as an investigative and a design methodology.

1 Bogue and Hauser, 1963; Davis, 1965; quoted in Castells, 1977, p.9

2 Bergel, 1955; Anderson, 1959-60, 68; Friedmann, 1963; Sirjamaki, 1961; Boskoff, 1962; Gist and Fava, 1964; quoted in Castells, 1977, p.9

3 Hamouda, unknown, p.2

4 Ibid.

5 Lefebvre, 2003, p.2

6 Ibid., p.3-4

7 United Nations Human Settlements Programme

8 UN-Habitat, 2006/07, p.5; quoted in Wagner, 2007, p.10

9 Merriam-Webster, 2007

10 Lefebvre, 2003, p.3-4

11 Yeang, 2006

12 Makhzoumi and Pungetti, 1999

13 McHarg; quoted in Thompson and Steiner, 1999, p.324

14 Marx; quoted in Merrifield, 2002, p.137

15 Corner, 1997, p.86

16 Forman and Gordon, 1986; Makhzoumi and Pungetti, 1999

17 Wascher, 2000, Kolen and Lemaire, 1999, Muir, 1999; quoted in Antrop, 2004, p.167

18 Zonneveld, 1995; quoted in Antrop, 2004, p.167

19 Wascher, 2000; Kolen and Lemaire, 1999; Muir, 1999; quoted in Antrop, 2004, p.167

20 Ndubisi; quoted in Thompson and Steiner, 1997, p.9

21 Forman and Gordon, 1986

22 Forman and Gordon, 1986

23 Naveh and Lieberman, 1984

24 Makhzoumi, 2002, p.222

25 Ibid., p.222

26 Swanwick, 2002

27 Makhzoumi, 2007

28 Makhzoumi, 2007

72 29 Sorkin, 2007, p.5

30 Greed and Roberts, 1998

31 Rowley, 1994, p.190

32 Inam, 2002, abstract

33 Inam, 2002, abstract

34 Ibid., p.37

35 Ibid.

36 Mostafavi, 2003, p.9

37 Boardman, 1978; quoted in Hough, 2007, p.54

38 Mostafavi, 2003, p.9

39 Corner, 2003, p.59

40 Murray, 2007, p.108

41 Krieger, 2006, p.71


43 Lyle, 1994, Preface

44 Makhzoumi and Pungetti, 1999, p.183

45 Ibid., p.161

46 Lyle, 1994, Preface

47 Alexander; quoted in Makhzoumi and Pungetti, 1999, p.185

48 Hill, 2001, p.92

49 Ibid., p.91

50 Antrop, 2003, p.1

51 Sorkin, 2007, p.18





56 Ibid.

57 Ibid.

58 Ibid., p.211

59 Ibid., p.213-214

60 Makhzoumi and Pungetti, 1999, p.213-214

61 Ibid.

62 Makhzoumi and Pungetti, 1999, p.213-214

63 TRNC/Ministry of Agriculture, 1996; quoted in Makhzoumi and Pungetti, 1999, 219

64 Makhzoumi and Pungetti, 1999, p.219

65 Ibid., p.250-251

66 Antrop, 2004, p.166

73

Can public space remain neutral to conflict and emptied of political meaning in a neo-liberal socio-spatial context that promotes formal aesthetics while society strives to transcend the post-colonial and post-modern conditions in the most brutal way: civil war?

The war in Lebanon never ended. Probably, wars never do.

Twenty-one years after the ceasefire in 1990, the trauma persists in post-war Lebanon and the Lebanese do not seem to agree on country building but continue their power struggles over identity and resources. Their struggle is deeply reflected in a geopolitically divided spatiality of sectarian geography; if you live in Beirut long enough, you can clearly distinguish neighbourhoods/spaces of dominant communities: Sunni Muslims, Shia Muslims, Maronite Christians, Greek Orthodox Christians, Roman Orthodox Christians, Druze and 12 other sects. Confessional politics frame and guide political life, social organisation and physical development, including planning and designing the supposed spatial social collector: Beirut’s public space.

An urban park is renovated but still closed for over 15 years. Public gardens, pedestrian areas and plazas are created in the downtown area but exclusionary governance prevails. A pilot project for a pedestrian/bicycle link, the “Soft Connection,” is proposed to link the park and the downtown, but the project seems farfetched. However, what strikes one’s attention is the fact that those three spaces – park, connection, downtown – are superimposed on the demarcation line of the Lebanese civil war, the ‘no man’s land’ of warring Beirut. Probably the most symbolic space in Beirut’s modern history, the demarcation line is thus emptied of all references to conflict and purged of all traces of war, to provide instead a technically well-carved landscape of modern neo-liberal consumption.

So, why do the main public space projects overlap the civil war’s demarcation line? What was the discourse that brought those three spaces together? Where does cultural production and spatial planning meet or diverge? How do the mechanics of collective memory and memorialisation work in favor of constructing public space? Where is the tension limit between the technical and the political in public spatial discourse? And ultimately, what is public space in Beirut?

Answers to these questions are crucial to provide a platform for a critical reading of public space in post-war Beirut, taking into consideration the constant state of conflict in a confessional power politics society. Through discourse analysis and based on an anthropological approach to urbanism, and through one theoretical perspective and another more involved and activist angle, we aim to provide a critical reading

of public space discourse in Beirut and the influential actors shaping it.

Our case study focuses on municipal Beirut in order to situate the social, political and spatial condition within the limits of municipal governance of the city—although greater Beirut is a much more complex socio-economic and spatial organism.

We would argue that exclusive representations of authority and exclusionary politics resituate the spatial significance and programmatic identity of public space from spaces of democratic political engagement to places of totalitarian formal values of hegemonic semiosis like national reconciliation. Beyond critique, we want this text to contest mechanisms of power and neo-liberal economics inscribed in current projects of public space in Beirut and reassert that the public has the right to access and to participate in planning this same public space and that authorities (municipality and planners) should take their voices into consideration.1

Public space and public domain in BeirutIn post-war Beirut not much has been done regarding upgrading existing public places or creating new ones except for the spaces discussed in this essay. It is clear to many people that the main spatial development projects have been infrastructural upgrading of the road network. The seaside Corniche, public gardens and sidewalks have received little attention, some refurbishing with new tiling and some landscaping; road medians got a greater share of landscape decoration. So the city’s existing public spaces continued to function properly, with or without new tiling. Only the public places of the downtown have been totally redesigned within the reconstruction project of the city centre and the urban park has been renovated as part of the redevelopment in the city. The Soft Connection is the newest proposed addition to the public space project in Beirut.

If you go to Beirut, everyone will tell you to visit its downtown. As in many cities around the globe, Beirut’s downtown2 is the latest and biggest real-estate development project in Lebanon, which acquired its significance when promoted as the prime post-war rebuilding project of the “Heart of Beirut”.3 The downtown is the historic centre of Beirut and its current financial/business hub. It lies at the northern edge of the city, opening up to the sea with a reclaimed land addition. To ‘facilitate’ the process of reconstruction, the private real-estate company Solidere4 transformed all private property ownership into shares and acquired government approval to supervise and manage the public domain. Today, the downtown is an island of offices of multinational corporations and their support services such as banks, luxury shopping

Appendix 2Recognizing the Invisible Monument

On the Politics of Memorialisation and Public Space in Post-war BeirutFadi Shayya, Fouad Asfour & Lana Salman

74 outlets, restaurants, hotels and other recreational facilities mainly dedicated to affluent city dwellers. Burdened by claims about the fairness/unfairness of compensation given to the original property owners, and imprinted with the neo-liberal policies common to many large-scale urban development projects in world capitals, exclusionary governance tops the headlines of discourse about downtown’s public space.

At the opposite end, Beirut’s urban park, Horsh Al-Sanawbar, lies on the southern edge of municipal Beirut, occupying what is left of historic pine woods.5 Horsh is a public property of 330,000 square metres (≈1.8% of the city’s area), owned by Beirut municipality since 1878 and officially designated as an urban park in the early 1960s. The park was burned to the ground during the Israeli Defense Forces’ invasion of 1982 and the 15-year civil war (1975-1990). It was renovated with French funding6 in the 1990s as part of rebuilding post-war Beirut and with an interest to facilitate communal reconciliation. Up till this day, more than 75% of the park is still closed to the public – with restricted access to permit holders. Several official excuses justify this closure, such as letting the trees grow, saving the park from litter, and the lack of a proper fire-fighting system.

Today, a new major public space project emerges on the horizon: the Soft Connection. The project proposes to connect downtown’s public space to the urban park via a green landscaped route designed for pedestrians and cyclists. The project runs along the civil war’s demarcation line – commonly known as the Green Line – and occupies the public domain, specifically the Rue de Damas and its sidewalks. The Soft Connection is a pilot experiment for upgrading pedestrian connectivity and reducing vehicular traffic in Beirut, funded by Beirut municipality and technically co-ordinated by Île-de-France. The project is still in the competition design phase and its connection to the north and south nodes is still under question as the southern node (the park) is still closed and the northern node (the downtown) is still an exclusionary space.

The discursive comfort zone of spatial planningWhat is common between those spaces of Beirut – the park, the downtown, and the Soft Connection – and what instigates a critical interest in their production is the fact that they all once constituted the Green Line. Observed separately, each project has its own context, objectives and timeline; however, a deeper and critical observation reveals a common discourse in understanding and planning the public space of the post-war city.

Back in the early 1990s, the reconstruction of Beirut’s downtown was presented as the national symbol of immediate rising from the ashes of war.7 Despite what many might claim as a neo-liberal plot to win the bid for reconstruction, the discourse of presenting the salvation of a single space as synonymous with the emancipation of an entire country proved effective when many Lebanese – inside or outside power circles – looked for a way out of their post-traumatic condition. As such, post-war spatial planning was highly influenced by a socio-political discourse that favoured a symbolically common yet neutral space among the Lebanese. Everyone can relate to the renowned city, the historic core and once bustling commercial and residential area during the first half of the last century.

In his paper ‘Laying Claim to Beirut’, Saree Makdisi argues that the reconstruction project “not only confuses public and private interests but that it represents the colonisation of the former by the latter” and the hijacking of the city centre’s public space and broader “public sphere… by capital”.8 Vital to understanding the pervasiveness of this discourse until today is the exclusion of city residents – even those who owned properties in the city centre – from all the discussions and debates about reconstruction plans. In fact, the reconstruction project was presented as “the only option […] (overlooking) how it came to be the only option, how other options were foreclosed long before the reconstruction effort officially began…”9 The reconstruction project kicked off and continued under the same symbolic veil and produced an exclusionary public space whose exclusion is a reflection of private powers and their interconnectedness to authority, politics and capital.

We would argue that the process of renovating the park adopted the same socio-political discourse, only this time away from public debate and media exposure. The competition brief and report clearly states Île-de-France’s interest in funding the renovation of Horsh as a green space that can facilitate the spatial meeting and social reconciliation of Beiruti/Lebanese citizens.10 The French donor was (and probably still is) interested in the fact that this park is an edge and a space for potential meetings between different communities: Muslim Sunnis to its west, Muslim Shia to its south and southeast, and Maronite and Greek Catholic Christians to its northeast. The fact that the park is an edge is true; actually, it constituted the southern node of the Green Line that separated space between geopolitically divided sectarian communities.

One can understand choosing to renovate the park for reasons of increasing green space and revitalising a dilapidated area. However, the discourse of reconciliatory value attributed to this space is not innocent of a naïve view of post-war conditions where authority (be it the donor, the municipality, the politicians or the planners/designers in this case) attempts to demonstrate its understanding of the situation’s gravity and to force its view of what is required to better it. Again, the choice falls on a space that is large enough to be worthy of a development project, that is symbolically beneficial to everyone, and that is almost politically neutral. Consequently, discourse produces a space that has no alternative: one unique space that will integrate all conflicting parties in the centre, a geometric utopian ideal similar to vanished 19th-century communist fantasies.

The technical numbs the political“Contrary to what neo-liberal ideologists would like us to believe, political questions are not mere technical issues to be solved by experts. Properly political questions always involve decisions which require making a choice between conflicting alternatives.”11

Similar to the discursive condition of the downtown and the park, so too was the discourse of choosing the axis that would be transformed into the Soft Connection. “Instead of having it either on the eastern side, or the western side [of the city], and look as if we are favouring one community, and privileging it over the other, … the choice fell on this axis,” stated Île-de-

75France12 which is partnering Beirut municipality and the CGLU-BTVL13 on this project. According to a former staff member of Île-de-France, the idea to connect the park to the downtown along the Green Line has been discussed within closed circles since the early 1990s.14 However, the call for proposals was discreetly launched some months ago with an invitation-only design competition. The former staff member wondered why the municipality and Île-de-France would still invest in memorialising the demarcation line 21 years after the end of the civil war.

A counter argument may suggest that the claimed similarity is a mere coincidence, or merely a biased reading of the situation, making the comparison between the public spaces of the downtown, the park and the Soft Connection obsolete. From our critical stance, this would be an oversimplification of connecting the dots. For the production of space to transcend its physicality and monumental symbolism to achieve a more complex reading of power interplay, we believe that urbanism – and those engaged in shaping it – must dare to be critical. It must critique the hegemonic discourses that are producing spaces that serve only to cover up the incompetence of politics to formulate common grounds. It seems, however, that in Beirut since the end of the war nobody “dares wins urbanism”15, a practice that has become obvious in the discursive conception of public space.

Île-de-France contends that the Soft Connection (Le Liaision Douce) is a pilot project to reinstate pedestrian space and encourage non-vehicular transport in the city. “Being French,” Île-de-France is not able to grasp the complexities of inter-communal conflict in Lebanon, and as such their contribution is restricted to technical expertise and the location of the Soft Connection axis is a matter of “local choice”.16 This challenging project entails dealing with different design constraints along the axis: cutting through infrastructure, difficult site slopes, major road junctions, narrow sidewalks, parking space on sidewalks, high-security areas, and fences. However, it is how the location of this public space project came to be chosen that is the crux of this discussion. A political decision had to be made about the location, and Beirut municipality was the main actor in determining this issue as it includes representatives of the major political powers in the city, i.e. representatives of the confessional political system.17

The choice necessitated consensus among the different representatives so it fell on an edge space, a middle ground that is almost neutral to confessional politics: civil war’s demarcation line. A connection between the park at the southern end of the Green Line with the downtown at its northern end was a perfect geographical fit – a truly wonderful collage weaving together three spaces that represent and memorialise the Lebanese civil war. But, who controls access to and regulates shaping cultural and collective memory? Who decides to bridge (or not) social spaces and cultural differences? Currently, the connection is obsolete since it is between two inaccessible nodes: an exclusive downtown and a closed park. What does such a choice really stand for, and what does this space of the demarcation line signify? Why did the municipality practice top-down spatial planning, and what happens when the Soft Connection is built without the

participation of people who live along it and in the city?

Collective spaces of memory and forms of memorialisationIt is important to examine in detail the tension between the symbolic and the functional planning dimensions of municipal urban policies and how these relate to the reality of communities living in affected spaces.

So far, post-war development in Beirut has been predominantly revenue driven. Solidere and its land reclaimed from the sea – where more and more offices are being built – are testimony of a policy that calculates the extension of land, first and foremost, as increase in profit. This dimension is not visible to new visitors to Beirut, and tourists (including consumer citizens) are the main target consumers of this space. But how do local Beirutis, who know the old city centre and the evolution of its spaces, speak about these developments? The current role of city spaces as money generating vehicles does not escape the notice of the local public, and knowledge about these processes can be traced in popular discourse specifically in cynical jokes that Beirutis create. In one anecdote, for example, some friends are driving through the downtown, shortly after its reconstruction, and the driver jokingly notes that one cannot jump all the red lights here like in other parts of the city … because it is a private development space with its own control and policing mechanisms.

In order to explore the significance of these spontaneous oral practices which undermine the official and corporate discourse of economic exploitation of public space, we need to consider different forms and media of cultural memory and memorialisation, which are inscribed in (or translated into) oral or written form and which condense in a number of different cultural processes in the built environment. One way is by understanding how memory and trauma are worked through in Lebanese contemporary artistic and cultural productions. This might help urban planning learn from such organic processes for drafting proposals in a minefield of public memory, opening up alternative routes than choosing between simply eradicating all traces of history and trauma or installing a publicly sanctioned reading imposed by municipal authorities.

At this point, we want to highlight that this text refuses to format the urban dimension of conflict in Beirut as a commodified, traumatized space.18 Similar tendencies have been identified around psycho-social interventions of international relief efforts and most prominently criticized by Vanessa Pupavac as “therapeutic governance”, i.e. “a new form of international governance based on social risk management strategies” that undermines local strategies of coping.19 Pupavac argues that such interventions result in “pathologising war-affected populations as emotionally dysfunctional…which explains the prevailing political, economic and social conditions…[thus] questioning its capacity for self-government.”20

Our approach connects a criticism of corporate practices that generate exclusive spaces for its users, i.e. tourists or shoppers, and it questions its contamination of politics of municipal urban planning in the case of the Soft Connection, which considers the upward moving middle class as the only constituency it serves. However, the greater population who (still) lives within

76 the demarcation of “Beirut” need to be considered, even if this will open up antagonistic positions. Through some examples from cultural production we intend to illustrate that in spite of all sectarian, economic and imaginary borders in contemporary and historical Lebanon, there still exists a common political dimension of this constituency which can be called “society”, a political dimension which shares an identity shaped by memory, by language, and not the least the use of public space. We provide evidence for one of these shared public realms –invisible however omnipresent – which could be called “collective memory,”22 that can be traced in popular culture as well as in films and contemporary art works that deal with the traumatic experiences of civil war, the haunting of disappeared family members and the persistence of invisible spatial borders.

The return of the deadSince the end of the civil war, the memory of experienced violence has been addressed in many cultural festivals, such as the Ayloul Festival (1997-2001), the Home Works series (1995-2010) and the UMAM Hangar productions21. Most presented art works bear testimony that people in Beirut still carry with them the shadows and presences of disappeared husbands, sons, family members and friends, never knowing if, when or where they died, nor if they might come back one day. In Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige’s film A Perfect Day (Yawmon Akhar), the protagonist’s mother stays at home every day, waiting for her husband, as she still has not accepted his disappearance after 15 years.22

Literary theorist Aleida Assmann argues that even something as fundamentally individual as a personal biography is already deeply social: “The difference between … the remembrance of the individual that gives a perspective on his life from old age and the commemoration of that life from the retrospective view of posterity makes clear the specifically cultural element of collective remembering. We say that the dead one ‘lives on’ in the memory of posterity as if this has to do with a natural continuation deriving from its own power. In truth, however, it is a matter of an act of resuscitation which the dead owes to the determined will of the group not to allow him to fade away but to persist as a member of the community by virtue of remembrance and to carry him forward into the on-going present.”23

This affliction is part of Lebanese cultural memory and an essential dimension of the contemporary discourse about spatial realities. It is important to point out the ‘material’ dimension of these memories about people who have disappeared. Their absence could be formulated as an invisible memorial, as it afflicts the daily lives of large parts of the population in Beirut and Lebanon. Any consideration about how to plan the formal space of the Green Line has to include considerations about how this fluent form of cultural memory has been already – although invisibly – monumentalised.

During a post-screening discussion of Omar Amiralay’s film Par un Jour de Violence Ordinaire, Mon Ami Michel Seurat… (On a Day of Ordinary Violence, My Friend Michel Seurat…)24 at the Home Works IV festival in 2008, the audience voiced their deep concern about the continuing ambiguity surrounding the death and

burial place of the French sociologist. Through the exchanges of the discussion, this lack of knowledge became manifest as a gap in the collective memory. The murderer (and/or kidnapper) of Michel Seurat was seen as the vessel of knowledge of the final stages of the biography of the disappeared. This knowledge about where and when someone was killed was acknowledged as an element of power, and thus another form of appropriation of someone else’s life. Only the murderer knows the place where the dead are buried and the time of their death. At the same time, the lack of this knowledge keeps the family members in an eternal suspense, one that has material and visible consequences: they cannot continue their life; they cannot find ways to resume normality. The material reality of the public’s participation in the formation of collective memory became clear when, at the end of the discussion, some of the audience called for a march to appeal to murderers to release knowledge on the whereabouts of missing family members in Lebanon.

Transforming repressed traumata into living cultural memoryMaybe the denial of this condition could be used as a metaphor for the lack of ability to deal with public spaces in post-war Beirut. Everywhere you step, each inch of space along the Green Line (and other spaces), is mined with memories, material traces of violent experiences. One can only wonder what would the people, who were exposed to traumatic experiences during the war, feel when they walk along the Green Line. In the minds of people, invisible borders are still present – hidden points of access, divided sectors, and boundary crossing checkpoints. Lebanese contemporary art became quite renowned for dealing with this condition, such as the works of the Atlas Group (established by Walid Raad), Lamia Joreige, Akram Zaatari, Rabih Mroue, and Nadine Touma.

For Touma, oral sources are an important resource. At the Missing Links exhibition at Cairo’s Townhouse Gallery in 2001, Touma created an installation piece entitled Selkeh Emneh (Crossable and Safe) in homage to the Lebanese radio anchor Sharif el-Akhawi. The work addresses collective memories by making use of recorded broadcasts of el-Akhawi who was a pioneer in reporting, writing and producing radio shows in Lebanon. At the onset of the Lebanese war in 1975, he started a morning radio programme, Selkeh Emneh, which mainly directed people towards safe roads to avoid snipers. One month after it started, people would not leave their homes or any place without listening to the show. Sometimes, el-Akhawi was on air for 48 hours non-stop. People of different social and sectarian affiliations in Lebanon relied on this radio show, which still resounds in the memory of many as it had a tremendous impact on people’s lives.

Such histories illustrate that the space of the Green Line cannot easily be commodified into a bicycle lane for the enjoyment of the urban middle class. Just like when municipalities across the world involve artists to create art in public space. The attempts to establish an engagement with the space through commemorating traumatic experiences and transforming traumatic spaces do not allow for an easy way out through strategies of repression of cultural memory. Rather, they invite conflicts rooted in history to be opened up and brought into today’s public discourse. In fact,

77the Green Line has already been monumentalised in Beiruti cultural memory, and the municipality owes a materialisation of this invisible monument to the public.

Grounded in discourseIn a country where conflict seems to become the norm, the relation between people and space has transcended typical structural dichotomies of public-private and open-closed, resulting in versions of territorial prevalence. The conflict is still there in all its different forms: political, sectarian and armed; new traumas seem to sustain the everyday, and the geopolitically divided spatiality of sectarian geography persists and increases. Public space as collective space only exists within cultural and sectarian homogeneous territories, and collective political engagement in a public project for public space is undermined by the “uncontested hegemony of liberalism.”25

“There are to be sure many liberalisms, some more progressive than others but save a few exceptions the dominant tendency in liberal thought is characterised by a rationalist and individualist approach which is unable to adequately grasp the pluralistic nature of the social world, with the conflicts that pluralism entails; conflicts for which no rational solution could ever exist, hence the dimension of antagonism that characterises human societies ... Indeed, one of the main tenets of this liberalism is the rationalist belief in the availability of a universal consensus based on reason. No wonder that the political constitutes its blind spot.”26

The experiment of rehabilitating Beirut’s public park to re-integrate conflicting social groups and facilitate post-war reconciliation has failed. The failure is twofold: first, the objective of reopening the park for social integration did not take place; and second, social integration in Lebanon proved to be fragile 21 years after the end of the civil war. The public spaces of the downtown and the park do not seem to integrate with the social fabric of the city: the downtown is a socio-economically exclusive island that is spatially isolated by major transportation infrastructure (roads, tunnels and bridges), while the park is an out-of-reach green haven that is spatially isolated by roads and closed to the public. If these spaces are not integrated with the rest of their social, economic and political context, what is the use of a unilateral spatial connection between them, other than inducing further consumption?

The politics of shaping and producing public space in Beirut is trying hard to mask its ineptitude in addressing the post-war condition. Everyone is talking about reconciliation but no one seems to reach a consensus on its definition or its departure point. On the one hand, people are still charged with animosity and blind loyalty to their confessional representatives in power; on the other hand, people’s war memories have been suppressed by a hegemonic discourse that simplifies the post-war socio-cultural context into promises of utopian spaces. Authority present contemporary formal urban interventions like design aesthetics (landscape to gaze at) and lifestyle etiquette (pedestrian activity and cultural consumption) as a platform for proper social interaction. Similarly, the politics of choosing the ex-demarcation line to implement projects of public space is masked by formalities – in the words of Don Mitchell – like literally being the ‘middle ground’ between civil

war’s conflicting communities. Public space turns into a landscape, which “as a produced object…is like a commodity in which evident, temporarily stable, form masks the facts of its production, and its status as social relation (Mitchell 1996a:30).”27

In post-conflict societies, conflict never ends. It becomes an integral part of the socio-cultural and politico-artistic values for generations to come. Conflict becomes a socio-political reality to be factored (not avoided or merely represented) in discourse, politics and space. If public authorities will always assume a repressive role through sectarian political legitimacy, the community’s responsibility – from people, to professionals, to civil society – to harness collective and individuals’ memories through proactive political engagement is a prerequisite. Only such political practice will push forward alternative participative models of shaping collective memory, memorialisation, and public space. So, if aestheticising public space is the semiotic equivalent for hegemonising the collective,28 then disengagement from the formal and engagement in the political is the sought after deterritorialisation. The only way for a body to conquer hegemonic power is through the “deterritorialisation” of its physical presence regardless of the power framework or its semiotic equivalent, argues Jean Baudrillard in his response to Michel Foucault’s The Will to Knowledge.29

Biographies

Fadi Shayya is a practicing urban planner and critical urbanist, living and working between Beirut and Arab countries. He is interested in public space as the spatial manifestation of power struggles and in landscape as the platform of post-modern urban planning. Fadi is the editor of At the Edge of the City and the co-ordinator of DISCURSIVE FORMATIONS, a Beirut-based critical think tank and research platform. (http://www.discursiveformations.net/)

Fouad Asfour is a freelance writer and editor, living and working between Vienna and Johannesburg. He has worked with various art institutions and was part of the editorial team of documenta 12 magazines, Kassel. Experiencing the production of contemporary art and culture, he has critically distanced himself from various forms of cultural hegemony, and he is currently examining ways to apply Critical Discourse Analysis to conditions of production and teaching of contemporary art as part of his PhD thesis.

Lana Salman is a researcher and consultant on urban development and economics, living and working in Beirut. She co-ordinated the Research Advocacy & Public Policy Program at the Issam Fares Institute of the American University of Beirut and has consulted for the United Nations and the World Bank. Lana is currently writing her thesis in urban planning on actors and masterplans in post-conflict societies.

78 1 Even though, we are aware that participatory processes of remembering will probably be recognized by the heritage and tourism industry as profitable and thus exploited in order to gain economic value.2 Beirut’s downtown is the Beirut Central District (BCD) popularised as ‘Solidere’, a discursive mistake between the downtown and the developing real-estate company’s name.3 Expression after: Samir Khalaf, Heart of Beirut: Reclaiming the Bourj (London: Saqi Books, 2006).4 La Société Libanaise pour le Développement et la Reconstruction du District Central de Beyrouth (the Lebanese Company for the Development and Reconstruction of Beirut Central District).5 Horsh Al-Sanawbar is Arabic for ‘Pine Woods’, whose planting and invigoration is attributed to Lebanese Emir Fakhreddin II Maan in the first half of 17th century. See Taha Al-Wali, Beirut: History, Culture, and Urbanism (in Arabic) (Beirut: Dar al-Elem lil’Malayeen, 1993).6 A design competition was co-organised by the Institut d’Aménagement et d’Urbanisme de la Région Île-de-France (IAURIF) and the Council for Development and Reconstruction (CDR) and funded by the Conseil Regional d’Île-de-France, with a financial contribution of €1,524,490 in 1998. See Christian Feuillet, ‘Mandature 1998-2004: Bilan et Perspectives’, March 2004 (Fédération des Élu-es Écologistes, Région d’Île-de-France, 2 December 2007).7 E. Scott and Y. Dlugy, ‘Reconstructing Beirut’, in Case (John F. Kennedy School of Government, 2001)8 S. Makdisi, ‘Laying Claim to Beirut: Urban Narrative and Spatial Identity in the Age of Solidere’, Critical Inquiry, 23 (3), 1997, pp. 660-705(693).9 ibid., Makdisi (1997) p. 664.10 Christian Thibault, ‘A Competition for the Pine Wood (Un Concours pour le Bois des Pins)’, trans. Mary Pardoe, Cahiers de l’IAURIF, no.106, pp. 167-177 (168-170).11 C. Mouffe, ‘Artistic Activism and Agonistic Politics’, http://www.monumenttotransformation.org/en/activities/texts/chantal-mouffe (accessed 05/02/11).12 Anonymous, quoted in ‘Planning the Soft Connection’, 24/02/11 (L. Salman, interviewer). 13 CGLU-BTVL is Cités et Gouvernements Locaux Unis-Bureau Technique des Villes Libanaises.14 Anonymous, quoted in ‘Designing the Green Line’, 16/03/11 (L. Salman, interviewer).15 A concept introduced in Critical Cities Volume 2 (London: Myrdle Court Press, 2010) to account for the opportunistic and realpolitik nature of contemporary production of the urban.16 Anonymous, quoted in ‘Planning the Soft Connection’, 24/02/11 (L. Salman, interviewer).17 Anonymous, stated in ‘Planning the Soft Connection’, 24/02/11 (L. Salman, interviewer).18 Check out the work of the New Yugoslav art/theory group Grupa Spomenik (The Monument Group) whose work address public space in the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia through believing “that the genocide is fully speakable, but that politics and critique of ideology are the only proper languages in which it can be spoken (http://grupaspomenik.wordpress.com and http://milicatomic.wordpress.com/works/politics-of-memory).19 Pupavac, V. “Therapeutic Governance: Psycho-social Intervention and Trauma Risk Management”, Disasters, 2001, 25(4): 358–372.20 Pupavac, V. “War on the Couch. The Emotionology of the New International Security Paradigm”, European Journal of Social Theory 7(2): 149–170.

21 These artistic and research productions are multidisciplinary platforms that periodically take place in Lebanon to promote and exchange cultural practices on contemporary Lebanese history and beyond.22 Hadjithomas, J., & Joreige, K. (Directors). (2005). A Perfect Day (Yawmon Akhar) [Motion Picture].23 In Aleida Assman’s seminal essay ‘Fest und flüssig: Anmerkungen zu einer Denkfigur’, in Aleida Assmann and Dietrich Harth (eds), Kultur als Lebenswelt (Frankfurt: [Publisher], 1991) translated and published in English as A. Assmann, ‘Memory, Individual and Collective’, in R.E. Goodin and C. Tilly (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Contextual Political Analysis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006) pp. 210-24.24 Amiralay, O. (Director). (1996). Par un Jour de Violence Ordinaire, Mon Ami Michel Seurat… (On a Day of Ordinary Violence, My Friend Michel Seurat…) [Motion Picture].25 C. Mouffe, ‘Artistic Activism and Agonistic Politics’, http://www.monumenttotransformation.org/en/activities/texts/chantal-mouffe (accessed 05/02/11).26 ibid., C. Mouffe.27 Don Mitchell, Cultural Geography: A Critical Introduction (Malden,USA: Blackwell Publishing, 2000). 139-140.28 D. Mitchell and R. Van Deusen, ‘Downsview Park: Open Space or Public Space?’, in J. Czerniak (ed.), Case: Downsview Park Toronto (Munich: Prestel and Harvard GSD, 2001) pp. 102-115.29 Sylvère Lotringer, ‘Exterminating Angel’, in Jean Baudrillard, Forget Foucault, translated by Nicole Dufresne (Los Angeles: Semiotexte, 2007) pp. 7-25.

79

In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, Americans, specifically New Yorkers, went through an exhaustive and lengthy process “from recovery to renewal” in efforts to continue their daily lives and rebuild their systems’ symbols. With political and bureaucratic complexities in mind, listed here are some dates of major events along the timeline of the recovery and renewal process.

First, the LMDC, Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, was formed with nine advisory councils of diverse stakeholders (officials and civil society) on diverse urban issues to contribute to planning the future of Lower Manhattan (with Public Outreach initiatives like neighborhood workshops). A “Tribute in Light” to commemorate 9/11 followed in March 2002. The Master Plan proposal of architect Daniel Libeskind was announced winner in February 2003; then, the refined Master Plan was released in September 2003. Later, the designs of the Freedom Tower and World Trade Center Memorial were unveiled in December 2003 and January 2004, respectively. It was until July 2004 that construction on the World Trade Center Site began. The result is a process of more than two and a half years of political and bureaucratic debate and work of assessment, conceptualization, competitions, participation, negotiation and decision making before physical reconstruction started.

On the other side of the Globe, another process of reconstruction is now taking place. The ground situation is overwhelming, and one feels pushed by the scale of human and physical tragedies caused by the Israeli military aggression on Lebanon in July and August 2006. However, with Haret Hreik in focus as the core destroyed area of the southern suburb of Beirut, being the security strong hold and urban symbol of Hezbollah, reconstruction does not seem to have enough time and space.

Haret Hreik is witnessing today a number of reconstruction dynamics mainly by two main actors: The Lebanese State and Hezbollah, as the major socio-political actor in the area. Both actors are generating damage assessment studies and distributing money in partial compensation for destroyed apartments, offices, and shops. In addition, the state issued a study report that allows rebuilding almost all buildings as they were (even if they had previously violated the building code) while Hezbollah is preparing for a major reconstruction initiative by creating the “Waad Institution”, to be announced on this 25 May. On the other hand, a volunteer civil-society initiative came from academic and professional planners and architects at the Reconstruction Unit (RU) of the AUB Task Force on Reconstruction and Community Service to contribute to the process and try to respond to its rapidity.

The RU Haret Hreik Team’s work started in September 2006 with a proposal to initiate an international urban design ideas competition for the reconstruction of Haret Hreik (in collaboration with Haret Hreik Municipality); however, the political dynamics worked against this proposal. So, the team moved to another practical alternative and produced in a three-day charrette during January 2007 the only proposal -so far- that deals with spatial reconfiguration of the area, including plans and diagrams of alternatives to the previous situation. The proposal intervenes mainly on introducing more open, public spaces and organizing traffic activities through creating underground parking spaces relative to existing economic centralities.

Today, we are almost close a year’s pass on last July’s aggression. But with conflicting intentions and politics and rapid processes of post-war reconstruction of a politically and culturally divided Lebanese governance and society, what we have got is not just a fast and hasty process of reconstruction but also a lost chance to aspatially and spatially commemorate what happened during the aggression so as to acknowledge it as part of our common historical process that brings us together. In other words, what is currently happening, consciously or unconsciously, is trying to “fill the void.”

Last week at the American University of Beirut’s City Debates annual series, an interesting debate took place on post-war reconstruction, its politics, and challenges, especially with the constraint of time and scale of displacement. The debates of this year were entitled “Cities after Disaster: Filling the Void” and introduced, among others, the proposal prepared by the RU Haret Hreik Team. The debate focused on the pragmatism of the proposal versus typical comprehensive planning and on the politics of conceiving the proposal and implementing it or not. However, a very interesting part of that panel was Walid Sadek’s contemplation on the Freudian model of mourning where he presented how mourning a dead person starts after burying the corpse, supposing that the mourners consent to what that dead person meant to them. Accordingly, the living can continue their lives acknowledging -collectively- what they had lost and leaving the void “un-filled” as it now belongs to a gone person.

Although in a different context of politics, culture, and urbanity, comparing the two cases of reconstruction in New York and Beirut shows that the post-911 process case is an interesting case of “un-filling the void” as it used the necessary time within a civil cultural background and political participatory frameworks to recover, commemorate, and conceive what will happen next. On the other hand, the process in Beirut is one where politicians and decision makers want to rebuild and restore previous situations as they were

Appendix 3Commentary Samples

“Un-filling the Void”

80 and as quickly as humanly possible, within a divided sectarian/ideological cultural background, and with no inclusive frameworks of major stakeholders and civil society groups. This way, the corpse stays with us, and we will not have a chance to mourn, in the words of Walid Sadek.

In New York, the voids are left as spatial witnesses to what happened and as civic, public attractors to what holds Americans together. What will happen if we could, somehow, translate our common mourning into spatial voids in Beirut?

Note: all info on the recovery and renewal of the WTC site are quoted from www.renewnyc.com

81

The Lebanon Cedar, Cedrus libani, boasts out of only three species of cedars in the world1 as a historical and majestic native conifer and the national emblem of the modern post-colonial Lebanese polity. Unlike the British government consultant Simon Anholt’s idea of ‘nation branding’2 to manage a country’s image and reputation (mainly through trade, culture, and tourism), one can noticeably observe that the Lebanon Cedar has been overexploited in government and private sector marketing and brand management, a practice evident in the many cedars in logos, signs, and icons.

Until recently, the latest of these brand management projects was what the United States administration coined as the ‘Cedar Revolution’, although this socio-political movement is commonly known as ‘March 14’ or ‘Intifadat al-Istiqlal’ at the local scale and has no indication of a cedar in its logo. Nevertheless, a new ‘cedar-branded project’ -this time by the private sector- seems to dominate the scene and overwhelm all previous cedar brands, and maybe cedars themselves.

I am not writing to debate the Cedar Island project from an economic or urban planning or sustainable development perspective; in fact, I am keen on investigating conscious and subconscious market agendas of such cedar-branded projects, sustainable or not. The enterprise behind the Cedar Island project is just another smart business entrepreneurship that is playing by the rules of the Lebanese free market economy and probably sectarian politics of ‘piece of the pie’. Despite the many objections to it, one can see that such a project may appeal big-time for many of the well-off Lebanese Diaspora and locals to own a piece of the Lebanon Cedar in actual physical property and in the Mediterranean Sea. In this case, the cedar-brand of the project may overshadow questioning the need or impact of such types of development.

The Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure argued that a ‘signifier’ (word, phrase, or visual) implies a ‘signified’ (meaning) given that both signifier and signified lie within a language system that we command. Forget that cedars only exist in natural realities and on vertical geographies almost touching the sky; the signifier Cedar Island project is signifying a multiplicity of contradictory meanings (development pattern, economic opportunity, environmental degradation, social justice, equal access…) that are grounded in Lebanon’s loose systems context where anything is almost possible. The cedar in Cedar Island becomes a signifier in a language that we do not command. What happened to a common term we all know: ‘balanced development’?

In our postmodern times of all sorts of concepts and ideas, I wonder what it takes and for how long to consolidate our collective and individual social responsibility to rise to the challenge of ideas, to

see beyond market branding, to appropriate cultural legitimacy, and consequently to contest free riding capitalist ventures employing extremely powerful cliché branding strategies like those of cedars.

1 http://alumni.eecs.berkeley.edu/~dany/lebanon/Cedars/cedar2.txt2 http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/11/magazine/11ideas1-5.html?_r=1

On Cedars and the ‘Cedar Island’…

82

In a recent interview with Michel Abboud (the Lebanese-American architect behind SOMA the design firm of Park51, the Muslim community center and worship space in Lower Manhattan), editor Alex Padalka made it direct and explicit to interrogate Abboud about his personal and firm’s history and competency to take on such a large-scale project in the world’s big apple, New York City. I would concur with Padalka’s professional doubts as the 33 years old Abboud and 37 years old Sharif El-Gamal (Park51 developer, Egyptian) are not only young but might be inadequately experienced and not ready to handle such project scale at the politico-cultural level. However, I want to suggest an alternative view of what the interview seems to signify.

Padalka’s interviewing discourse questions Abboud’s professional potential and attempts to reveal his cultural background and political stance, which signifies a predominant “Western” preemptive/orientalist attitude towards the East/Islam (even as part of NY’s community). Similarly, Abboud’s self-justification discourse of being an eastern Christian working with Muslims (and maybe Jews!) and promoting cultural dialogue signifies a predominant “Eastern” infatuation/indecisiveness toward the West/Globalization. Both discourses drive around each other in circles.

As portrayed in the interview, the project is some kind of a wealthy, young developer’s vision designed by a young architect lucky to be his friend. The project’s architecture is discussed relative to New York’s glamorous architectural scene (specifically the motif façade) and not relative to the post 9/11 consequences and yet-unresolved tensions. Employing arabesque motifs is another pop reproduction of using formal architectural/heritage aesthetics (like arches, pediments, column capitals, wind towers, etc.) which represents concerns with historicizing identity, asserting political presence, and eventually increasing selling value.

The project, its opposition, and even the interview are actually components of a postmodern, postcolonial cultural struggle and political debate between East and West. If not being “used” as a means to an end, in its very best state Architecture’s efficacy—in this case—is struggling with transcending the postcolonial. But, can it really do so?

Padalka, Alex. “RECORD speaks with the principal of SOMA, the architecture firm behind the controversial Park51 Muslim community center proposed for Lower Manhattan.” 7 October 2010. Architectural Record. 9 October 2010 <http://archrecord.construction.com/news/newsmakers/1010Michel_Abboud.asp>

Can Architecture’s Efficacy Transcend the Postcolonial?

83Appendix 4

PROGRAM GENERAL INFORMATIONThe MUPP and MUD programs offer a first graduate degree to students interested in acquiring the critical skills necessary to analyze urban contexts and to formulate urban interventions in the form of projects and/or policies. The two graduate programs emphasize research skills as primary tools for teaching and learning. The graduate programs also seek to create a multidisciplinary debate among various approaches to understanding and practicing urban planning and urban design by enrolling students with different social science and design-based undergraduate degrees, as well as by hosting lectures and organizing yearly seminars that reflect on the different professions of and practices in the built environment, in addition to encouraging linkages with other schools of social science and design in the University. This research-based and multidisciplinary approach to urban planning and urban design make the MUPP and MUD programs unique in Lebanon and the region where most other planning programs are structured as applied professional degrees.

Program StructureThe two graduate programs extend over two years of full time enrollment. The MUPP track requires students to take a total of 30 credits, nine of them in a sub-discipline of specialization where planning and policy-making skills are applied. The MUD track requires students to take a total of 33 credits, 12 of them in applied design studios. The two tracks share a common core of 21 credits consisting of three core courses (Research Methods; Planning Theory and Policy; and Urbanism), one planning/design workshop and final Thesis. The thesis necessarily involves empirical research and generates innovative ways of thinking and understanding the future context of their practice. In addition, all students enrolled in the MUPP/MUD programs are required to take the zero-credit seminar entitled City Debates at least twice during their university enrollment. One of the core courses, Urbanism, could be waived, depending on the student background and upon the consent of the academic advisor.

MUPP-MUD Course Description* and Academic Research*source: http://webfea-lb.fea.aub.edu.lb/fea/ard/academics/masters.aspx

84 CORE COURSES

URDS 601 PLANNING AND DESIGN WORKSHOP [6 CR.]The course investigates the multiplicity of readings of a place, how they contribute to the production of space, and how they impact approaches to urban planning and design. It seeks to confront legal and institutional lenses with anthropological investigations of how space is perceived and experienced by its producers and/or users and revealed through classic investigations of social analysis. Based on a selected case study, the class aims at generating a series of mappings through which actual planning and design interventions are developed.

URDS 602 DESIGN STUDIO [6 CR.]In this studio in urban design, a case study is selected for which a rationale for an intervention has to be devised and a design intervention elaborated.

URDS 603 DESIGN THESIS [6 CR.]Supervised research and design is tailored to individual students and culminates in a final thesis in urban design.

URPL 630 RESEARCH METHODS [3 CR.]This course examines the process and practice of qualitative research, as applied to the field of urban planning and urban design, stressing the logic of scientific explanations. The elements of research design are investigated by focusing on the study of several qualitative and quantitative methods. Students learn how to design their research methodology in accordance with their research problem.

In this workshop, I was part of a research group investigating “the multiplicity of readings of a place, how they contribute to the production of space, and how they impact approaches to urban planning and design” of the physical space of Tarik Al-Mattar (old airport road), which stretches from the airport to downtown Beirut passing through the southern suburbs.

Through anthropological investigations and ethnography, we mapped and analyzed data related to the urban evolution, urban fabric, land zoning and regulations, land use, land value, transportation, political markings, and landmarks of Tarik Al-Mattar.

Then the group split to deal with focus zones, and I chose Horsh Al-Sanawbar (Beirut’s park) along the axis of Tarik Al-Mattar. I investigated the park’s historical relation to urban sprawl and to the diversity of social practices in such a public space against current municipal strategies of enclosure.

In this course, I investigated a development scenario of a number of empty land lots in Verdun, one of Beirut’s high-end shopping areas.

I used systematic urban design spatial analysis methods within the existing statutory and regulatory context to project the proposed scenario. The methods included socioeconomic context, social practices, land use, urban morphology, figure-ground, land ownership, and perceptual analysis.

My design intervention focused on Lot 2046 (36,000 m2) -currently the Druze cemetery- with challenges of re-programming and urban development.

In my final thesis, I investigated the failure of the ‘1960s Master Plan Model’ to respond to current social, economic, environmental and ecological concerns of Lebanese settlements that are in constant dynamic evolution.

In addition, I reflected on the limited role of conventional urban design in addressing human settlements –especially rural- beyond the formal, and thus the need of a holistic landscape framework to identify, analyze, and intervene on contemporary challenges of heritage preservation and sustainability.

In this course, I presented a research proposal to investigate ‘Mixed-use Development’ as an effective urban planning strategy to vitalize city neighborhoods and endorse cultural diversity.

My research case study drew upon Hamra as one of Beirut’s lively cosmopolitan areas to construct the conceptual framework, methodology, and references of my proposal.

85URPL 631 INTRODUCTION TO PLANNING THEORY AND POLICY [3 CR.]A course designed to introduce students to current debates and practices in the field of planning in lower income countries, looking at how, where, and by whom planning is practiced, and how planning goals have evolved over the past decades. Students read and discuss relevant debates in the field of planning. Special emphasis is placed on encouraging students to articulate their own positions and to discuss planning practices in the context of the Middle East.

URPL 660 CITY DEBATES SEMINAR [0 CR.]The seminar, titled “City Debates”, addresses various urban issues each year; in particular, it tackles ongoing planning and design concerns related to Lebanon’s post-war development from a multidisciplinary perspective. The seminar is offered annually during the spring semester. Topics have included A Critical Assessment of the Lebanese National Master Plan; La Meen Beirut? (Whose Beirut?); and Urban Heritage and the Politics of the Present - Perspectives from the Middle East.

URPL 680 THESIS PREPARATION [3 CR.]The core course prepares students who have completed most of their graduate coursework to write their final thesis. Students identify a case study, select a research problem, develop a hypothesis and a research question, and propose related methods of inquiry. The course outcome is a completed thesis proposal.

ELECTIVE COURSESURPL 620 BUILDING THE COLONIES: COLONIALISM, IMPERIALISM, AND URBAN CHANGE [3 CR.]Colonialism and imperialism can be interpreted as part of larger ideological and sociopolitical systems that continue to inform changing cultural values today. This seminar uses sites of colonial urbanism to investigate ways that spatial organization is used to produce historical knowledge. We consider alterations made to pre-existing cities, as well as new city plans, both built and projected, in the Americas, in Asia, and around the Mediterranean Rim.

URPL 633 URBANISM [3 CR.]A course in the basic principles of contemporary urbanism. Special attention will be paid to the relationships among forces acting upon the city, critical and descriptive theories of urbanism, and contemporary approaches to urban design.

URPL 636 URBAN ECONOMICS [3 CR.]This course focuses on using the principles of economic analysis to explain why cities exist, where they develop, how they grow, how different activities are arranged within cities and the spatial aspects of urban problems such as traffic congestion, poverty, and substandard housing. The main economic concepts that are used include the consumer choice model, monopolistic competition, the input choice model, short-run and long-run curves, and the interaction between markets.

In this course, I investigated a variety of topics such as decentralization, environment, gender, political clientelism, and conflict in relation to planning theory and practice and in the form of writing position papers.

My final research addressed the power of politics in overruling and operating technocratic planning knowledge in the case study of expropriating land to build new public schools in Beirut between 2000-2005.

In this course, I investigated the pretext of the French colonial mandate in modernizing Beirut’s historic city center, specifically the realization of Place de l’Etoile.

My research employed methods of critical historical inquiry and acknowledging primary information sources, where I compared the symbolism of the physical morphology of Place de l’Etoile to Michel Foucault’s critique of Jeremy Bentham’s ‘Panopticon’ model.

In this course, I investigated Henri Lefebvre’s theoretical notions of ‘Production of Space’ and David Harvey’s analytical notions of ‘Capital Circulation’ to identify the relation between production processes and products.

My research case study explored the production of Al-Makassed Center in Mar Elias, Beirut in the context of capital circulation and demographic changes during the Lebanese Civil War.

In this course, I investigated Arthur O’Sullivan’s ‘Monocentric City Model’ to understand the urban economy of Beirut’s city center.

My research case study investigated the economics of French colonial modernization in the Beirut’s historic city center and how it dictated radical urban spatial transformations from a Medieval low-rise to a Modern high-rise morphology.

86 URPL 662 INTRODUCTION TO POLICY ANALYSIS [3 CR.]This course introduces students to the analysis of public policies--taken in their broad sense, as programs, regulations, and decisions elaborated by a diversity of stakeholders belonging to formal and informal institutions. The seminar teaches students tools for analyzing development and planning policies, and for proposing alternative policy interventions. The course uses the Lebanese scene as its research field, but also investigates other policy case studies.

AUDITED COURSES

ARCH 020 BEIRUT MODERN [3 CR.]The course investigates modern architecture in Lebanon, mainly in the 1950s and 1960s, shedding light on a vibrant period that produced a distinctive local version of modernism. The course covers aspects such as architectural education, the organization of the profession, patronage, competitions, collaborations, and the various meanings given to modernity and tradition.

URDS 664 ECOLOGICAL LANDSCAPE DESIGN AND PLANNING [3CR.]The course, an introduction to the theory and methodology of ecological landscape design and planning, aims to introduce the holistic approach of landscape ecology and its application in sustainable management of natural and cultural landscapes/ecosystems. The course syllabus is planned to prioritize on Mediterranean ecosystems and landscapes and equally to promote interdisciplinary collaboration in research and project management.

In this course, we investigated –as a research subgroup- different actors’ roles and power structures in the policy making process.

Our research project addressed the roles and structures of the State, the Municipality of Beirut, and the private company SOLIDERE in devising policy directives for open public space in the Beirut Central District.

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1: Photographs by Fadi Shayya, 20092, 3: Photographs by Henrietta Williams, 20108, 9: Drawings courtesy Fadi Shayya, 2002(left) & 2007 (right)12, 13: Book cover illustration by Danny Khoury, 201014, 15: Photographs by Fadi Shayya, 201016, 17: Photographs by Danny Khoury, 201017: Infographics by Fadi Shayya, Lina Abou Reslan, & Nancy Hamad, 200918: Poster illustration by Danny Khoury, 200924: Drawings courtesy HoK + IBI Group + Omrania & Associates, 200924, 25: Infographics courtesy Dar Al-Handasah (Shair & Partners), 2010;25: Drawings courtesy SETS, 200825: Drawings courtesy Gustafson Porter Landscape, 200629: Drawings courtesy American University of Beirut, 2009

30: Diagrams courtesy Bureau Technique des Villes Libanaises, 200931, 32, 33, 34, 35: Infographics courtesy Collective for Research & Training on Development-Action, 200940, 41: Photographs by Fadi Shayya, 200945: Diagrams courtesy United Nations Economic & Social Commission for Western Asia, 200746, 47: Photographs by Fadi Shayya, 200851: Drawings courtesy Chakib Ricahni Architects, 200451, 52: Drawings courtesy Spectrum Engineering Consultants, 200353: Drawings courtesy Fadi Shayya, 200958: Photographs by Henrietta Williams, 201059: Photographs by Fadi Shayya, 200360: Photographs by Unknown, 1997

Credits

dannyk.wordpress.com

Fadi Shayya is an urban planner, architect, writer, and social advocate living in and working from Beirut, Lebanon. Acknowledging the need for practice-driven research on place making and critical discourse on spatial culture in the contemporary Arab city, Shayya joins teams of urbanists, designers, engineers, and social scientists to imagine alternative contextual meanings through the DISCURSIVE FORMATIONS platform.

Shayya’s work on Beirut’s public space and urban park (Horsh Al-Sanawbar) owed him the 2008 Basil Fuleihan Innovative Good Governance Award. He is the editor At the Edge of the City: Reinhabiting Public Space toward the Recovery of Beirut’s Horsh Al-Sanawbar. He occasionally participates in lectures and seminars, and he currently practices urban planning and design with Dar Al-Handasah (Shair & Partners).

Shayya has worked with the United Nations on development, MDGs, and urban governance in Lebanon, Kuwait, and Jordan, and has consulted for the American University of Beirut and NGOs on spatial studies and infographics. He holds a Master of Urban Design from the American University of Beirut (2007) and a Bachelor in Architectural Engineering from the Beirut Arab University (2002).

Printed in Lebanonwww.discursiveformations.net

Discursive Formations Portfolio

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