A NEW NETWORK FOR THE CITY

NAHER BEIRUT

 

The new intrusion includes a connection from the south to the north passing by the city of Beirut and crossing the Beirut River from several sides. In the new approach the aim is to connect different systems together. The city of Beirut lacks a clear understanding of its organisms, its transportation systems, its infrastructure, its green spaces, public spaces, urban voids, highways, sidewalks, natural components such as the huge Beirut River extended over kilometers and the Beirut hill overlooking the amazing skyline of the city and lengthened meters above sea level. During the French mandate improvements took place in Lebanon to cure the damages of the war; the apparition of educational institutions, ecological restructuring, and a successful achievement in extending a railway over the Lebanese coastal line. The infrastructure in Lebanon was highly maintained and under continuous development. The main train station was located (and still exists) in Mar Mkhayel, Beirut at the southern end of the Beirut river. The rail way tracks extend parallel to the river all the way to the Far East and crossing through Bourj Hammoud all the way to the northern cities of Lebanon. On one of the edges of the river is located another train station that was mostly used for industrial and economical transportation of goods. In between the system of the river and the system of the rail are empty lots and dense ones; lots with a high density of population and inhabited buildings and other ones empty, or rather filled with neglected greenery. These urban voids will serve as public spaces for the citizens of the city to create a balance between the mega forms and the masses of the capital.  The idea of involvement includes the establishment of a new railway scheme that will merge with the other transportation systems of the city to provide a self sufficient organism within Beirut connected to all the functions the citizens need providing them with safety, and amusement at the same time. The railway system will work in coherence between Beirut international airport, the actual Mar Mkhayel station, bike lanes, Bus stations and the current coastal highway. Checkpoints will be added to create a set of connections of different functions, moreover the railway will not only serve the economical sector but will also serve the ecological one in different manners: first of all It will diminish the abuse of gas in the vehicular segment, second of all checkpoints and stations will be added within the neglected urban voids in the city to transform them into green public spaces. The river will no longer work as a boundary between two parts of the city but it will rather merge with the spaces around it that will serve the public domain: pedestrian paths will be magnified, the wild life will reappear in the water and the small woods on the sides and the whole city will come out clean again. The masses will remain the same except the fact that spaces between them will become more active and more vibrant with life. The architectural aspire of the intervention is to prevent violence in architecture, to introduce people and movement to a city that is dying from the overlapping of dysfunctional networks and that has no sense of urbanism nor ecological understanding of its valuable components .