"Beirut - Patchwork City" - Summing up Ideas from the DPU Summerlab
The Beirut Summerlab is an urban workshop organised by the Development Planning Unit at the Bartlett, University College London, jointly with Public Interest Design - Levant and l'Academie Libanaise des Beaux Arts. The focus of the workshop was a neighbourhood in the eastern Beirut suburbs which has been gradually socially and physically marginalised from the rest of the city. By studying the urban social, economic and historical context of the community, a series of interventions were developed with the purpose of creating new links of cohesion and acceptance within the community, and providing a basis for social, cultural, environmental and economic development.
Study & Assessment
Intervention Ideas
It was decided that the main purpose of the project would be to allow the community to create its own narrative, wihtout imposing our vision or ideas of what we want the community to look like. Through various workshops and activities taking place over an extended period of time. The community can shape their own neighbourhood, create their own promenade and set up their own urban gardens. Our role would then be facilitators for change.