A Dutch firm has just released the plans for a brand new project to be commenced in the heart of Beirut. In the spirit of the reveal, we’re sharing the models of 4 unique designs created especially for Lebanon!
A business hub and a residential attraction with a rich cultural identity, Beirut has been the coveted object of many reputable architectural firms, with the target extending even beyond the capital.
#1 Beirut Legacy
Netherlands-based architecture firm LAAV has conceptualized a neo-brutalist high-rise for the Lebanese capital, and they named it Beirut Legacy.
Brutalist architecture is a historic movement that became highly popularized between the 1950s and 1970s. It is characterized by the use of concrete and steel to create massive building blocks.
Encompassing 45,000 square meters, the versatile tower contains 400 luxury apartments defined by the small concrete modules that make up the structure.
Beirut Legacy is a 130-meter high tower formed of 70 square meter apartments that surround a concrete core. There are eight different schemes including horizontal and vertical layouts, with or without a balcony.
In addition to the main apartment building, there is a low-rise volume attached at the base which houses a commercial space.
Proposed for central Beirut, the tower is intended to create a dialogue with the city’s Burj el Murr tower (see below), a notorious 40-story skyscraper that would have been the trade center of Lebanon.
The west-facing apartments would have views of the notorious structure whilst the north-facing accommodation looks towards the sea. Huge glazed windows connect the contemporary interior with beautiful views of Beirut.
#2 Midori
Lebanese Armenian and Harvard graduate Paul Kaloustian designed the Midori complex for a corner lot in Badaro, Beirut. The residential building is currently under construction, with its date of completion slated for later this year.
Driven by a desire to create a ‘tree building’ to combat the extinction of greenery in Beirut, Kaloustian created a stepped design that allows the integration of planters with metal mesh panels.
The proposed model dominates the skyline, featuring floor-to-ceiling façades where divisions between the interior and exterior are blurred.
Its scheme borrows many aspects of local Mediterranean lifestyle and architecture, with spaces bathed with natural light, sun-breakers, and vegetation.
#3 Y House
Venturing outside the capital, the next unique design on our list is a foreign-concept house for a suburban village in South Lebanon. Designed by the Built by Associative Data architecture firm (BAD), Y-house features a 3-armed structure overlooking amazing 360 views.
All parts of the house revolve around a central hall which serves as an entrance. One arm containing the living areas cantilevers over the road, while the remaining two sit firmly on the ground.
The house’s three volumes offer a panoramic view of its surrounding, accentuating the beauty of the site. The proposed Corten steel skin allows the house to blend with its natural entourage, creating homogeneity with the landscape of local trees and rocks. This natural mix is complemented by a water pond that adds serenity to the overall project.
#4 Stone Garden
This nostalgic design is nothing short of what we expect of prominent Lebanese architect Lina Ghotmeh. Born and raised in Beirut in the 80s, Ghotmeh was undoubtedly influenced by the ancient cosmopolitan city and its scars of the civil war.
Her Paris-based firm, Lina Ghotmeh Architecture, has created the Stone Garden tower in the port of Beirut as an expression of her own interpretation of memory, space, and landscape.
Destroyed and reseructed 7 times through the ages, not counting the war of its recent history, Beirut is a permanent archeological site that reveals story after story of its history via architecture.
Ghotmeh embraced that all to add it to the storybook that is Beirut’s landscape. Her residential tower emerges as an earthy sculpture at an urban scale.
The organic textural quality of the exterior finishes together with the irregular organization of its apertures to introduce what critics called “a marriage of the tower typology and the vernacular housing of the region.”
The many openings of the structure offer multiple framings of the sea from the inside. With allotted spaces for plants and gardens, its windows invite nature to climb up to the sky over Beirut.
The completion of the residential tower and its art gallery is anticipated in the upcoming months.
