Prospects: Towards an Enhanced Practice of International Design Studio Collaborations

Scholars of architecture use the epistemological practices of science and art to imagine alternative futures and identify their spatial prerequisites. Despite, or perhaps because of, the protected laboratory setting of academia, design studios have the potential to demonstrate and illustrate the possibilities of foregrounding different politics....

Temporal Framework: Towards a Broader Conceptualization of Time in Design Education

Teaching design requires a conscious understanding of time and temporality. The passing of time is central to design as a creative process, which is mainly focused on initiating change and creating a transformation between two states. Whether this transformation is driven by a societal need or an individual need for self-actualization, the...

Designing Post-Blast Beirut: Intersecting Perspectives: Reimagining the Edges between Port and City at a Time of Transition

How provocative can visions about the future be? What is the role that education can play in helping (re)imagining port-city territories at a time of transition? In this contribution we will answer this question through the lens of master’s elective course ‘Adaptive Strategies’ for the 2020/2021 spring quarter run by Carola Hein, Professor...

Design Pedagogies in Times of Crisis: Six Universities - Six Studios on Post-Blast Beirut Reconstruction

In the spring of 2021, professors and teachers from around the world taught studio courses and seminars that focused on the destruction and rebuilding of Beirut following the massive explosion that took place in the port on August 4, 2020. Some of these courses were taught collaboratively, others started as an independent project, but students...

Urbanism and Geographic Crises: A Micro-Simulation Lens on Beirut

At a geographical and strategic confluence, the ancient city of Beirut, Lebanon, has witnessed crises from natural and human causes over the centuries. The modern urban and peri-urban development is a result of neo-classical economics, laissez-faire regulations, and complex socio-political structures. This article considers the contemporary...

Virtual Roundtable “Beirut Urban Declaration: Which Future for Beirut Port?”

Changing realities: Traumatic urbanism as a mode of resilience in intra-war Beirut

In 1975, and in an ambiance of increasing tension, the streets of Beirut served as a stage for a series of violent events and in a matter of days, the sounds of mortar shells and machine guns provided an applied interpretation of the conflicting interests of the different Lebanese and global political players. With few intermissions and a...