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The River 12 Mapping Beirut Through Its November 2015 Joanne Nucho Tenants’ Stories Public Works Studio

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The River 12 Mapping Beirut Through Its November 2015 Joanne Nucho Tenants’ Stories Public Works Studio 2 Bringing Beirut River 8 Beirut theatre slides into an back to life island of trash theOtherDada Jessica Leopauldine Khazrik 4 From Vartavar to concrete to 10 The Beirut River crocodile environmental disaster frenzy Alia Fattouh Nadia Christidi 5 The river 12 Mapping Beirut through its November 2015 Joanne Nucho tenants’ stories Public Works studio 6 Transect of erosion 15 Vartan Avakian’s ghost river Sarah Lily Yassine Rayya Badran Omar Fakhoury, site specific intervention for TandemWorks | Date : 20 September 2015, removed by anonymous on 21 september | Banner, 3 x 24 m Translation to English: "I regret I won't be eating garbage and drinking sewage this season, for travel purpose" - The Sea. Editorial note Mayssa Fattouh It appears that most of the world's major cities were built flux of migration, and was preparing for a long civil war that on or around areas of freshwater. Our ancestors chose to settle would shape it into what we know today. there since rivers are a source of food, a means of providing With profoundly rooted divisions amongst its citizens, drinking water for families, herds and crop irrigation, and Beirut has become impregnated by fissures as wide as Nahr they delimit cities. In antiquity, when the Romans had built Beirut, and as opaque as its walls. The intervention Hammoud an aqueduct crossing the river, Nahr Beirut was as a source of Badawi comes at a time when civil society, with the help of freshwater that filled the Roman Baths located in the current private and individual initiatives, is filling in the gap of state city center of Beirut.The river continued to do so until the inefficiency in order to find immediate, viable solutions for ‘industrial age’ when, for reasons of convenience and due deep malfunctions. to its proximity to the city’s port, an erratic industrial zone It is not so much a gesture of hope or a promise of change developed along the riverbed drastically transforming the that informs Hammoud Badawi. It is, rather, to produce landscape as well as the use of the river. dialogue and access memory, imagination and collaboration. The Nahr Beirut we now know is a concrete canal flanked In this inaugural project and publication developed by by high walls that block visual access to the river as well as to TandemWorks (TW) – an initiative that aims to raise cultural and social signifiers practiced by communities and awareness on social, cultural and environmental issues with neighboring residents. By the time the decision was taken to arts interventions in the public realm– Hammoud Badawi has erect the high walls as a security measure against recurrent commissioned contributions from various disciplines to think floods, the country was well on its way to radical change. about the relationship of the city and its inhabitants to Nahr Lebanon had already lived a political crisis in 1958, experienced Beirut. ...continue reading on page 13. 1 Bringing Beirut river back to life About the author About Rivers and streams are dynamic systems, its running waters, resulting in the loss of the which in their natural state continually beneficial ecosystem services. The river no modify their form. They are considered longer provides clean water, a space for flood living organisms; they breathe life into the retention, habitat for biodiversity, and most lands and the communities surrounding importantly it prevented cultural amenity them. They are important biodiversity areas, and social activities. where a diverse network of species thrives, theOtherDada is initiating a strategy to such as water birds, fish, amphibians and rehabilitate Beirut River through methods other water dependent organisms as well as inspired from biomimicry: design inspired humans. Rivers are also important freshwater by nature. The aim is to study the function suppliers as they bring clean, potable water of a healthy riparian ecosystem and recreate for drinking and irrigating agricultural lands. these services though the proposed solutions. They play an important role in the water cycle The rehabilitation of the river integrates as they carry water and nutrients, and offer nature in the degraded urban environments plenty of water retention areas that mitigate to improve the surrounding neighbourhoods’ flood events. They also provide recreational living conditions. spaces for social activities that bring people together. Let’s bring Beirut River back to life! Historically, the Beirut River has played an important role in providing ecological and social values. It belongs to a large, natural network where a succession of rich and vital Case study diagram: fluvial ecosystems slowly merges into one another from mountain to valley; ecosystem, To understand the current state of the here, referring to a community of living Beirut River in comparison to other rivers, organisms and non-living components such theOtherDada developed a Comparative as air, water, soil and mineral. Table measuring the environmental In the natural section upstream, the performance and ecosystem services of the watershed incorporates a functional rivers from Worse Case Category to Natural ecosystem that provides benefits called River Category (for more information, the “ecosystem services”. These include a number categories are explained further below). of points: Several case studies were examined showing Provisioning Services: Provide freshwater how restorative interventions transformed in the area of Daychounieh for irrigation and rivers from Artificial to Natural stream potable water to the city through the roman waterways. aqueducts. Transport sediments, organisms In comparison to regional and and nutrients. international case studies, some rivers were Regulating Services: Treat, store water, as in a worse state than the Beirut River. The well as control erosion to mitigate the impact Cheonggyecheon stream in Seoul, which was of floods and storms, and filter waste through once buried and covered by a freeway and natural processes. concrete deck, was transformed into Supporting Services: Offer food, shelter, a recreational linear park even though the and water to living organisms. The River concrete walls were still delineating it. acts as a vital migratory path for more than Another example is Wadi Hanifa Project theOtherDada 70,000 soaring birds. where the sewage and waste water in Riyadh Cultural Services: Provide a space for ran through the city posing a health risk to Active since 2010, the architecture lab recreation and cultural activities for local the community and is now treated by natural theOtherDada defends communities such as, the renowned means [phytoremediation with plants] an alternative position Armenian Water festival Vardavar, in which providing a continuous ribbon of naturalised towards the current Armenians traditionally gathered around the parkland that interconnects the city, the practice of sustainability through context and river and drenched themselves in water. people and the Wadi. medium, invoking new Currently, the system is broken. relationships between The human interventions interrupt the climate, landscape, and inhabitants. Informed by natural flow of water from the mountains to biomimicry, they connect the Mediterranean Sea. Once it reaches the natural ecosystems of urban section the river no longer performs as sites to understand and consequently devise new a healthy water body with its usual, natural potential living habitats. functions. The polluted water caused by theOtherDada works raw sewage dumping, the concrete channel within a collaborative process between architects, and the construction of the Daychounieh scientists, botanists, dam drastically altered its physical habitat artists, economists and the structure, and the ecological functioning of craftsmen. 2 Case studies Taking successful case studies showing River rehabilitation from artificialRIVER REHABILITATION to natural how interventions transformed rivers from CASE STUDIES FROM ARTIFICIAL TO NATURAL artificial to natural stream waterways WORST CASE ARTIFICIAL SEMI-ARTIFICIAL IN BETWEEN URBANIZED NATURAL POLLUTED NOISE CHANNELIZED WATER CLEAN / BIODIVERSITY INCREASE GREEN SURFACES NATURAL NATURAL SERVICES COVER RIVER BODY POLLUTED FLOOD-PROTECTION ENHANCE PUBLIC SPACE PHYTOREMEDIATION ATTEMPT TO RETURN WITH HIGHWAY COVER RIVER STORM-WATER MANAGEMENT BIODIVERSITY HABITAT TO NATURAL STATE BEIRUT RIVER / BEIRUT RIVER tOD PROPOSAL CHEONGGYECHEON CHEONGGYECHEON STREAM STREAM (2005) Beirut, Lebanon Today Beirut, Lebanon Future MoEW & tOD • Undergrounded1955 KANDA RIVER South Korea, Seoul KANDA RIVER (2010) • Covered« with a freeway SeoAhn Total Lansdcape Office & concrete deck 1971 • Project area: 5.84 km WADI HANIFA (2007) WADI HANIFA • High level of water pollution Tokyo, Japan • Concrete walls delineating the river • Results: development of an Urban Forest Riyadh, Saudi Arabia Moriyama & Teshima • High level of water pollution Planners & Buro Happold • River covered Design Office • Water waste dump • Awards: Aga Khan Award ELWHA RIVER (2011) for Architecture ELWHA RIVER Washington, USA • Important for the development • Largest dam-removal of the Olympic Peninsula • Restore Salmon Runs • Provide electricity for a paper mill • Restore the river ecosystem Taking successful case studies showing how interventions transformed rivers from artificial to natural steam waterways References 1 Biomimicry Institute. 2015. “What is biodiversity in Indo-Burma, David Accessed September 08 2015. http:// Synthesis. World Resources Institute, Biomimicry.” Accessed September
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