Bernard
Khoury / DW5
Plot # 1282
www.ievasaudargaite.com & Bahaa Ghoussainy
The zone in which our project is located is not presently considered
residential. The project’s program consists of 95 industrial lofts with
surfaces ranging from 100 square meters to 650 square meters on a
total built up area of 25,800 square meters.
Plot # 1282 is a residential project located on the northern
periphery of Beirut at the proximity of one the city’s abandoned and
unused railway terminal, military barracks, leftovers of agricultural
land and a 30‐meter wide highway. The zone in which our project
is located is not presently considered residential. The project’s pro-
gram consists of 95 industrial lofts with surfaces ranging from 100
square meters to 650 square meters on a total built‐up area of
25,800 square meters.
The floor slabs are organized around nine exposed cores, each core
feeding a maximum of two apartments per floor. The proposed lofts
feature high ceilings (5.3 meters) with open space plans and minimal
interior partitioning. With a surface area of 5,400 square meters, the
site perimeter is 430 meters of which less than 12 meters are facing
a public access road. This implies that 97% of the site periphery fac-
es parcels on which buildings could be
erected at some point in the future.
In its present state, the site enjoys un-
obstructed panoramic views on all ori-
entations through the totality of the pe-
rimeter of the plot. As a result of that, all
proposed loft spaces enjoy full transpar-
ency of their facades with openings that
span from floor to ceiling on all exterior
elevations. In an unforeseeable future,
as the surrounding plots get built, and
with the gradual densification of the im-
mediate environment, the full apertures
of our facades will face unpredictable
situations that our project’s morphology
responds to by its continuous setback on
the totality of the perimeter of the site
and the gradual recess of the floor plates.
This gesture should guarantee generous
breathing corridors along all the site’s
peripheral limits for our project and the
future buildings of the surroundings.
In many sectors along the periphery of Beirut, relatively high ex-
ploitation factors are applied on zones that are still undeveloped. In
the absence of a master plan, the rapid gentrification of these sectors
has led to catastrophic urban conditions. In most cases, the general
guidelines of the very complex and archaic municipal building laws
are the only leading rule and reference on which developers build
their schemes. In such situations, it is becoming increasingly difficult
to define the integration of a project and its relationship in the long
term with the neighboring sites. Our proposal for Plot # 1282 does
not only celebrate the present state of its environment, the absence
of buildings and the scarceness of the urban fabric on which it sits,
it also anticipates the future expansion of its surroundings and its
rapport with the unpredictable conditions that will be implied by the
development of the sector.
www.ievasaudargaite.com & Bahaa Ghoussainy