Beneath the pavement, the beach

Abstract

This thesis is about the convergence of two boundlessly enigmatic dimensions; turbulent coastal morphodynamics of a vanishing coastline in the presence of acute geo-political conflict. The Lebanese coastline undergoes a permutation of intertwined anthropogenic and natural forces, ensuing its exponential recession, deterioration, and inaccessibility. Its geographical location on the eastern edge of the Mediterranean exposes it to powerful environmental forces that materialize as destructive storms and pose a significant susceptibility to earthquakes and tsunamis. Its ongoing history of immutable geopolitical conflict has resulted in calamitous wars and corrupt power networks, distorting entitled spatial rights and access to shore space. These problematics culminated in my endeavor to pose and decipher the following research question; How can the understanding of Beirut’s coastline as a series of extreme environmental and anthropogenic permutations inform its design agency, programming a coastal space that functions as an autonomous littoral landscape while simultaneously attaining spatial justice for its inhabitants? This project argues that it is imperative to acquire an analytical approach that anticipates the permutation scenarios and their occurrence in conjunction with one another when addressing conflicted littoral landscapes. Focus is then narrowed through the tactical selection, analysis, and design proposal of Beirut’s shores and the instances of violation along them, as a unique opportunity to address a microcosm of extremes. Through the synthesis of literature on the perception of territory, indeterminacy, temporal landscapes, and the dichotomy between man and nature, I adopt an approach through which my methods of analysis and design interventions emerge. Thorough investigations lead to the realization that the answer to such a question simply lies in the intrinsic characteristics of the littoral landscape. It possesses power in its innate attributes, which have been completely removed in the context I am investigating through the imposition of fragments on what used to be a coastline but is now reduced to this hard edge, separating two highly contrasting worlds, eliminating the transitional space in between that is necessary to exist for them to coalesce harmoniously. The objective of the project becomes about bringing back the beach; a liminal space that is neither land nor sea, a threshold zone that recognizes malleability and uncertainty in this highly conflicted context, where something so simple could be the answer to such profound complexities. I hypothesize that, in such dire conditions of extremes, achieving this goal would necessitate the adoption of an alternative lens. This lens would identify potentialities and accordingly, maximize them, while questioning the limitations of time, bending it, and treating it as a site of intervention. This is achieved through an analytical approach of cartographic and graphic interpretation, identifying which of these fragments still allow for such a threshold space of liminality to exist, and to what extent. The project would then communicate with these identifications, and accordingly determine the characteristics of this new form of beach that will manage to coexist with the extensively analyzed fragments. This is followed by a set of critical morphological actions and a series of seed interventions, directly reacting to the distinct scenarios manifesting on each fragmented shoreline while interacting with one another in concert to symbiotically generate these fragments of beach conditions as a diffused state of being. These alterations would engender tangible and intangible consequences occurring over various spatiotemporal scales. The culmination of these actions becomes a canvas through which a mere shift in perspective makes room for impact in this case of copious impossibilities.