[News] A Palestinian team wins a competition for the design and reconstruction of the Port of Beirut

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Four Palestinians, who obtained a bachelor's degree in architecture from Birzeit University in the West Bank, won first place in an international competition to design and rebuild the devastated port of Beirut in Lebanon.

The Palestinian team won the 2021 Phoenix Award presented by iDAR-Jerusalem, a Jerusalem-based Palestinian non-profit organization that promotes architecture by celebrating innovative and outstanding design ideas.
The Palestinian project won over two projects of two competing teams: a Russian and an Italian, and the Pheonix-2021 Prize is part of the Haifa Prize International Program organized by the Jerusalem-based IDAR-Jerusalem Foundation and founded by a Palestinian engineer, which aims to address “risk” spaces in different regions of the world as an attempt to create ideas Innovative architectural and urban studies to explore the possibilities of reconstruction of these stricken areas.

The theme of this year's competition touched on the tragic explosion that struck the city of Beirut and its devastating impact on its seaport and public space.

Several teams from different countries worldwide participated in the competition, and 13 projects qualified for the competition, in which the Palestinian team M.A.D Architects’ project won first place, entitled “After the Explosion - Produced Beirut.” They are Alaa Abu Awad, Diala Andonia, Mais Bani Odeh and Majd Al-Malki.
The project presented crucial key aspects in rebuilding several neighborhoods in Beirut, according to what the team of engineers explained to Sky News Arabia, "most notably the creation of a new local economic system operated by local residents, so that this system depends mainly on the vocational education system, by providing spaces that include workshops Work, production factories, vocational and agricultural schools to contribute to solving the unemployment crisis and business continuity.

 Among the project’s objectives, the team explained, “Giving the citizen the entitlement to his city by asking him to resist privatization and create public spaces that shelter all kinds of social activities that aim to increase social cohesion and unity, whether in the form of open public spaces or local markets produced by the city’s local residents and highlights all directed initiatives To re-use materials such as iron, wood and glass that were largely scattered in some neighborhoods of the city as a result of the explosion.”

"This architecture project presents a new vision that will make Beirut a productive capital based on its own potential, in the wake of the explosion that destroyed many homes and increased unemployment," said Majd Al-Malki, a member of the winning team, in an interview with Sky News Arabia.

"The explosion also led to food shortages as a result of the destruction of granaries. The project seeks to reuse what remains on the site, and recycle materials such as iron, wood and glass scattered around the place of the explosion, as these materials can be used in the reconstruction process," he added.

Al-Maliki also said, "The efforts made to boost the local economy are one of the most important aspects of the project, by providing creative spaces for workshops, production spaces, and agricultural and vocational schools, which contributes to combating unemployment that exacerbated after the explosion, and creating future job opportunities for hundreds of Lebanese."

The program also aims to quickly provide temporary housing units for the 300,000 Lebanese who lost their homes in the explosion. These temporary homes will be developed in the future, so that they can be converted into permanent places to live or work.”

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Al-Maliki added, “Our project is based on preserving and perpetuating the collective memory embodied in the silos and the explosion area, through the thoughtful merging of daily activities with the harsh memories of the place as a permanent reminder of the scars of the city and the loved ones lost in this accident. The explosion area and the silos were thus identified as the focal point and central point of the new city from By strengthening and consolidating the silos with a functional and structural structure that works as part of the public space and the local market (the silo market)

The project focuses on creating public spaces and po[CENSORED]r markets for the local po[CENSORED]tion, while preserving the collective memory of the Lebanese by focusing on grain silos, engineer Alaa Abu Awad, one of the team members, told Sky News Arabia. The project required a great deal of effort on the part of the team members, who took four months of continuous work and research before it was completed.”

Alaa added that Lebanon hosts hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees on its territory, so the Palestinian team's project is a sign of their support for the Lebanese people.

She added, "There are many challenges that the team faced. The most important of which is the lack of information available about the city of Beirut, the number of destroyed buildings, and the conditions of the buildings that are still standing."

Alaa concluded, "The team resorted to social networks in order to obtain information about the extent of the damage, in addition to the maps they obtained from the competition committee, and our project aims to reuse these materials in the reconstruction process and link them with vocational education schools and industrial productive spaces that can be used in the reconstruction process." It helps in creating new knowledge that supports the achievement of the goal.”