Meetings with local actors in Lebanon

During our field visit to Lebanon, we were pleased to have many interesting meetings with enthousiastic groups of different specialists. We would like to thank everybody for the good meetings and the new ideas! Special thanks for Mr. Nassib El-Solh, Mrs. Jeumana Nasser and Mrs. Hiba Haidar for their active presence and energetic attitude in almost all of our meetings during our stay in Lebanon.

Saturday 7th April

 

On our first day in Lebanon we had the pleasure to have a meeting at Al-Amal Institute for the Disabled in Broummana, Mont Lebanon. We met Nassib El-Solh (Al-Amal Institute), Amar Al-Tarshah (The executive manager of Al-Amal Institute), Shadya Maqsal (Pedagogical Supervisor, Al-Amal Institute) and Riva Fneish (Administrative Assistant, Al-Amal Institute), who offered us interesting information about the Institute, Rock Village and the end-users.

We also visited a Lebanese ecovillage in Dmit Valley, Chouf mountains, Lebanon. The ecovillage is a place for educational ecotourism, where visitors can learn about the environment, organic agriculture, healthy living etc. We met Karim Khatib, the founder of the ecovillage.

View from Broummana.

EcoVillage in Dmit Valley.

Sunday 8th April

 

On the second day we headed for the Rock Village site in Nabatiyeh governorate, South Lebanon. It was an eye-opening visit as we learned much about the local conditions and requirements. We met Hiba Haidar (Tathmeer group), Marie Claude Fleyfel, Jeumana Nasser (Tathmeer group) and Ali Berro (Lebanon green building council).

We also visited the nearby municipalities of Yahmur and Arnoun to learn for example about local governance, infrastructure and planned projects. In Yahmur we met Ayad Olleik (Yahmur municipality), Kassem Saad (Yahmur municipality) and Mouhamed Dawoud (Yahmur municipality). In Arnoun we met Al-Hajj Fawaz Qatbay (The head of the Arnoun Municipality).

Rock Village site in South Lebanon.

View from Beaufort castle.

Monday 9th April

On the third day we held a presentation of our project at the American University of Beirut. We had the pleasure to meet many experts and discuss about the Rock Village project as a whole. We met Mounir Mabsout (AUB CCES), Vatche Boyadjian (Tathmeer group), Rima Habib (AUB Env & public health) and Rabih Shibli (AUB CCES).

American University of Beirut.

Shoreline of Beirut.

Tuesday 10th April

On our last day in Lebanon we visited a grain processing factory in Zahle, Beqaa valley. As a factory like this is also planned in Rock Village, we learned much about grain processing and the requirements of this kind of factories. We met Abu Tarek (Manager of the Zahle grain processing factory). We also had some time to visit the beautiful ruins in Baalbek.

Grain processing in Zahle, Beqaa valley.

Ruins in Baalbek.

Our trip to Lebanon was very fruitful and gave us many new thoughts to elaborate in our project!

Green Buildings and how to create them?

 

Green building (also known as sustainable building) refers to a structure and using process that is environmentally responsible and resource-efficient throughout a building's life-cycle: from sitting to design, construction, operation, maintenance, renovation, till the demolition. This requires close cooperation of the design team, the architects, the engineers, and the client at all project stages.

To create an ideal coordination between all parties, a dynamic process called the ‘integrated design process’, (IDP), has been developed. Larsson explained that the “[…] IDP is designed to allow the client and other stakeholders to develop and realize clearly defined and challenging functional, environmental and economic goals and objectives” (Larsson 2002)*.  

As not all buildings are complexes of electro-mechanical systems, architecture remains the main tool in the hand of the architect to deal with the local environment surrounding the structure. Simply put, by the full awareness of the local environment a user may easily create architecture without architects that manages to erect a suitable and comfortable shelter; that is the so-called Passive Buildings. The passive buildings are meant of using the consequences of internal spaces and the building material and technologies to improve the thermal behavior of the structure in temperature Gain/Lose process.

There are different rating systems to classify a certain structure to stand on ’How sustainable the building is’.

Having explained the above, the next post will interpret such information on the Rock Village architectural drawings  given to the planning team ; my observations on the concept.

*Larsson, N (2002) The integrated design process. Report on a national workshop, Ottawa: Natural Resources Canada

Observations From Lebanon

Lebanon has a great potential to be capitalized in supporting the local development. However our rapid Urban Laboratory there revealed some important facts. To understand how difficult to implement a project of the Rock Village nature, an observer should be aware of such facts, some of which is shocking. The sewage networks drain into the Mediterranean creating a stinking air, where beaches suppose to encourage tourism development. Drainage networks in the inner lands drains into surface-open-ends in the uninhabited areas. The electrical current in the country cuts off everyday, people should either use generators, in a country with similar fuel prices as in Europe, or stay without electricity. The latter might be the motivation behind renewable energy solutions on the state, regional and local levels. As for agriculture, the very fertile land suffers from the lack of water and from building upon.  The inner and southern lands municipalities, some of which are of 3000 capita, formed lately regional unions to create a critical weight to solve their problems, the union ended to nothing. A mayor representative in Yahmor municipality reported that 70% of their budgets are to be spent in garbage collection. To brief the above, solving these problems is the key word in a real urban developing. This is the Lebanese context; fragmented individual initiatives and no concrete results adding a real value to the public good. These are the circumstance in which the Rock Village is to be read within.

Greetings from Lebanon!

Now we're here! After long flights and a short sleep last night we have started to familiarize ourselves to the Lebanese culture and most importantly the Al-Amal Institute. We started the day with a tour around the Institute's Winter Sweater Program. Unfortunately the "kids" where not present due to Eastern holidays, but we got to look at the facilities.

Hossam, Axel, Susa, and Aino at the Winter Sweater Program's facilities

Nassib el-Solh, leader of the Al-Amal Institute

After the visit to the Institute (and a short presentation both from us and people working with the institute) we traveled to take a look at an Ecovillage currently operational south of Beirut.

Ecovillage (read more from http://www.ecoecovillage.com/)

Ecovillage had very nice energy solutions, basically they covered everything with solar heaters and micro hydro, the latter was capable to produce some 1250W.

Micro hydro (bar screen and surface regulator on top of a 10 meter drop)

Of course we had time to go to the beach, however small the beach was. That's it for this time. Hear from us  again, soon!

Aino and Susa in the water, Axel and Hossam are discussing the state of the world.

Getting ready for our Urban Laboratory in Lebanon

As our urban laboratory in Lebanon is coming closer, we had a pre-travel meeting today. In order to achieve the goals of our project and understand the area, local conditions, and socio-cultural aspects, a field trip will be arranged on 6th–11th April 2012. Today, we agreed on a schedule for our trip and discussed some pre-arrangements that we still need to do.

During the field trip, we will consult local stakeholder groups, such as the Al-Amal Institute and the American University of Beirut. As well, we will visit the building site close to the village of Arnoun and a local grain processing factory in Zahli.

We will try to report our findings in the blog also during our trip!