BePublic is a Vertical Design Studio that takes place during the spring semester at the Department of Architecture and Design, part of the MSFEA at the American University of Beirut. It caters to 3rd and 4th year architecture students who are interested in installation works that address the city. The studio culminates with several 1:1 interventions in different parts of the city with an aim to seek, host, challenge, improve, engage and question the city by reacting to situations that are taking place in the here and now.
Serving the community, especially at an urban level is becoming a necessity in a city like Beirut. In such a studio, students acquire hands-on experience while addressing everyday issues including their rights as citizens. They react to the needs of people, to be able to understand the benefits, strengths, and limitations of design and still have an impact at a city scale. Installations become pedagogical tools for both the city dwellers and the designer, underlining the importance of the subtle and the mundane while questioning socio-political measures.
It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. 2020
by Rana Haddad & Joane Hayek
appropriate investigates the (lack of) place that is provided by the city for the youth: A sense of not being part of the community in 2018.
by Rana Haddad & Pascal Hachem, in collaboration with neighborhood initiative
slience investigates about the noise pollution of Beirut 2016, Building a radical new aesthetic that informs the field of unintentional sound, interpenetration, chance and indeterminacy.
by Rana Haddad & Joane Hayek, in collaboration with ‘Sawt wa Samt’ initiative
Home-less-home addresses Beirut’s waste recycling, management, and awareness by building three different carts for collecting and recycling waste in Bourj Hammoud in 2014. The use of an architectural object as a tool to challenge our existing built space and to propose an alternative.
by Rana Haddad & Maha nasrallah
Public Beirut questions the city’s “publicness” in 2012, dealing with the existing conditions of public space, generating a gathering space, linking site conditions and essentially engaging the largest amount of public within their intervention.
by Rana Haddad, sandra Richani & carole levesque
A COMPILATION OF ALL THE VIDEOS that WERE MADE AS SLIGHT INTRODUCTIONS TO EACH PROJECT.