Inhabiting Pollution to Address the Commodification of Nature

Inhabiting Pollution to Address the Commodification of Nature: An analysis into Bourj Hammound Landfill, Beirut

Hemingway, Katrina (TU Delft Architecture and the Built Environment)

Milani, S. (mentor)
Schoonderbeek, M.G.H. (mentor)
Jennen, P.H.M. (mentor)

Delft University of Technology

Architecture, Urbanism and Building Sciences

2021-07-08

Beirut is a catastrophically polluted place; the foul garbage piling up on the streets, high level of air pollution and rapid privatisation of green spaces are all causes of such an ill-treated palimpsest city which has quickly declined into this condition. Today Beirut relies heavily on its port, which has been conceived from the sea like its neighbouring landfills as the commodification of nature, as the city performs futile grasps to stabilise the recessive economy. Such complexity of issues drives the key thematic of this research; an architectural manifesto to inhabit these ruins, the pollution our own making, in the context of the climate crisis.

In my theory paper, the commodification of nature has shown the theoretical need for post-industrial landscape re-use. The research has taken my project through the need for circularity within port cities as a way to create a post-growth economy. This research looks at tangible sources of pollution in cities as well as the socio-economic context of Beirut. My position is that the pollution of Beirut is a symptom of the socio-economic failings which occur along the timeline shown in this research.

The findings show there is a need to re-conceptualise its position in areas like Beirut Port District of which architects have a role in playing. The statement of intent embraces this need to harness the waste we ourselves have created, most importantly to frame an alternative interface between pollution and inhabitation, between waste and city, in symbiosis.

The resulting project encompasses both a landscape approach and a small built proposal that sits in the polluted landscape of the Bourj Hammound landfill in Beirut. The proposal acts as a symbiotic response between waste and city, to form a new settlement principle and a catalyst that aims to breathe new life into the forgotten and contested land and history upon which it sits.

landfill
pollution
circularity
sustainability
beirut
borders and territories

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:2a323016-3916-4cad-b2fe-0d7ff9c92b16

Student theses

master thesis

© 2021 Katrina Hemingway