park is park is infrastructure the Horsh Beirut ‘biosphere’

scope master plan and urban landscape strategies
type awarded competition entry
date 2020
location Beirut, Lebanon

In collaboration with Aziz Barbar

In 2020, the Horsh Beirut pine forest shall grow beyond its current fenced area and beyond its original perimeter (1876-1921)to claim public streets, sidewalks, encroached cemeteries and private rooftops in the form of urban green-blue infrastructure. This is the ‘horsh biosphere’, a re-imagined novel ecosystem, an infrastructure that serves urban resilience to Beirut City’s contemporary challenges. It serves as a social infrastructure, as ecological infrastructure, water infrastructure, as connectivity and networks to provide ecosystem services. ‘Horsh Biosphere’ also grows beyond the predominant ethnic and political discourse, towards a holistic environment that is urgently responsive to the equality in the quality of life and well-being of its residents, all inclusive.

The establishment of the pine forest in the early 17th century was envisioned as a green belt to filter dusty Southern winds before arriving to the urbanized area. Today, the city faces water quality and quantity challenges, flood risks, overheating, and shrinking open shared spaces, all of which are exacerbated by unregulated urbanization and climate change. The site then takes on a new responsive infrastructural role.

To achieve that, Park Is A Park Is Infrastructure does not take a planning and zoning approach, but rather a landscape one focused on a series of pragmatic, simple, low-cost, nature-based regulated interventions that are contextualized per each of the existing and projected typologies of space/land use identified in the horsh ‘biosphere’ today.