Damour beach club

Our proposal builds on two main criteria. The first is the identity of the client. The second is the historic fabric of the site .

The agriculture plain of Damour, set on the border of the city of Municipal Beirut , is the embodiment of a sea front and suburb in mutation. The banana fields are slowly disappearing and instead gated high-end resort like beaches are being developed. With the rise of the sea level the public  zone is sunk allowing a complete privatization of the sea front.  A higher allowable built up area in this zone is also changing the biodiversity of the area.

The order of engineer and architects, an institution that is responsible for the evolution of the  built form is invited to challenge the status quo  of privatizing the access both physical and visual to the sea while maintaining the provision of a service to its members.

Our Proposal, The Plateau (pronunciation: /pləˈtoʊ/ or /ˈplætoʊ/), is an area of highland, consisting of relatively flat terrain that is raised above the surrounding from one side and integrated in the ground from the other 3 edges. This architectural strategy,  creates a habitable green roof mat, at a parapet level above the street, therefore maintaining a visual and physical connection of the sea, from the secondary roads in the field, and town.

The essence of the plateau is made of an architecture of relationships rather than form.

The edges of the Plateau allow a public access to the sea and a tertiary road between a natural rock and extension of the plateau allows a connection of a proposed public pathway to connect on the plot the neighbors sites.

The planted surface of the plateau establishes a system of interaction, present and potential, between the beach, gym, and FNB programs. The spaces of transition and associations offer a poetry of movement and a sense of connectivity and chance encounters.  Various circulation spines, slow and fast, horizontal and vertical in between the natural landscape patches allow the roof to be a vital entity in the life of the building and the ecology of the area.

يستند المشروع على معيارين رئيسيين. الأول هو هوية صاحب المشروع, والثاني هو النسيج التاريخي لموقع سهل  الدامور، على حدود مدينة بيروت ، هو تجسيد لواجهة بحرية و منطقة في حالة تحول, بينما تختفي حقول الموز ببطء لتحل مكانها المنتجعات الخاصة.

مع ارتفاع مستوى سطح البحر غرق القسم المخصص للعامة من الشاطئ في المياه. وبذلك تحول الشاطئ إلى ملك خاص و الى إرتفاع كمية المساحات المبنية. الأمر الذي يؤثر سلباً على التنوع البيئي والحيوي في المنطقة.

 

نقابة المهندسين المسؤولة بشكل خاص عن التطور المديني وهي مدعوة لتتحدى حالة تخصيص البحر  من خلال مشروع يخدم اعضاءها ويحفظ الحق العام.

 

المشروع يتألف من مسطحات تتساوى مع الأرض المحيطة من جهات ثلاث وترتفع فوق المستويات المحيطة من جهة البحر.

 

هذه الاسترتيجية المعمارية تخلق مسطح مزروع، بإرتفاع قريب من مستوى الطريق وبالتالي يحافظ على التواصل البصري والجسدي مع الشاطئ, والطرقات الثانوية المؤدية الى البلدة.

جوهر المشروع مبني على العلاقة بين الأقسام والنشاطات بينما يأخذ الشكل الخارجي أهمية ثانوية. المساحات المزروعة تخلق مجالات للتفاعل بين الشاطئ، المسابح والنشاطات الرياضية والترفيهية. الامكانيات العديدة للتنقل من نشاط إلى أخر, تسمح بالتلاقي بين مستخدمي المشروع. المساحات الخضراء المتوفرة على مستويات عديدة تجعل من المشروع كياناً حيوياً متفاعلاً مع محيطه.

 

 

 

Strategies

 

The Plateau brings together a vast array of practices and techniques to reduce and ultimately eliminate the impacts of buildings on the environment and human health. It emphasizes taking advantage of renewable resources, e.g., using sunlight through passive solar, active solar, and photovoltaic techniques and using plants and trees through green roofs,

 

The Plateau is in harmony with the natural features and resources surrounding the site.

 

The project follows a sustainable approach through several key elements:

integrating construction in the ground: using the earth as insulator and minimizing facade

surfaces. the sloped landscape optimize the heat exchange of the contained space by letting in low winter sun rays and sheltering out the high incidence of the summer rays.

 

inner courtyard generated from the carving of the site‘s plateau act as microclimate introverted hubs. These hubs create nucleus of light and air that regulate the house’s thermal exchange drafts and program the house’s spatial core.

 

Passive façade design, by implementing louver  sun shades, in varied sizes and direction, and tailored to each orientation of the building volume

 

Creating green roofs on the majority of roof areas acting as a natural insulator .

 

Approaching the landscape from a sustainable approach through minimizing irrigation needs, incorporating native plant species, and optimizing indoor air quality.

 

Creating fragmented buildings in separated enclosed envelopes  that can each function separately with season changes and day/night activities.  This helps maintain a fully controlled micro-managed indoor environment, thus minimizing energy loss, as well as air and noise pollution

 

 

the visual access to the sea is maintained from all public locations.

Physical access is maintained from the road network to the sea from the sides of the plateau.

A physical access on the site, protected by a natural rock to be located on the sea shore, allows the public to connect linearly along the sea shore. This right should be encouraged even if it infringes on private property.

 

 

 

  This project is in Collaboration With Carla Aramouny

Status: Co-winning scheme