Beirut Design Week 2018 Feature

َ Feature

Beirut Design Week 2018 Feature

Contents About MENA Design Research Center — 6 BDW2018 Team — 8 Bdw2018 Theme — 16 Design & The City: Data Mapping & Access — 20 Design & The City: Livability & Sustainability — 28

In the 7th edition of Beirut Design Week, we welcomed the design community to take a more active part in our curated programs and to be featured in our annual publication, which is dedicated to discussing the thematic of the year:

Design & the City:______________________________________________________ What kind of Design for what kind of City?

In the past months Lebanon has witnessed new conversations and developActivating networks horizontally ments on the political sphere, leading to the elections that had not taken place for nine years. Citizen engagement and active participation has been on the rise, focusing on being more critical of current challenges, and mobilizing to create new grassroots movements. Moreover, what we notice, is the growing role of designers, architects and creatives in the interventions and awareness campaigns presented by various parties, institutions and independent groups.

Therefore, it seemed very relevant to bring the city into the core of the conversation in our annual festival, and ask our community: what makes a good city? And how can design influence that vision?

In this year’s feature, we present our readers with various examples that have been implemented and have created positive impact in Beirut. In order to create a comprehensive overview, we look into 2 main categories of research and projects. The first deals with different methods of mapping, and access to information in the city; while the second looks into creative and innovative models of livability and sustainability in the urban environment.

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The reason we feature such projects is not only to encourage more active civic participation from our community of designers, but also to point out the need for public sector engagement. Therefore, this year, the municipality has again become a main partner of Beirut Design Week, ensuring their awareness and understanding of the value of design to our city.

And finally, we feature our round table discussions on governance, education, and refugee challenges with our local and international panelists, who will provide us with insight based on their current research and professional experience.

For a city that is known for its chaos and lack of infrastructure but also for its vibrant energy and rich heritage, we hope to see some of these interventions become a reality. We also hope that through Beirut Design Week, we may influence future generations to be active citizens, using their creative skills to improve life for everyone.

Doreen Toutikian Founding Director & President of the Board MENA Design Research Center

When we first launched our theme, Design & the City, for the 2018 edition of Beirut Design Week, calling for city-wide activations that invited designers to become instigators of change, we realized that such ambitious plans required a clear strategy and a set of diverse activities and programs that could demonstrate the kind of impact we believe design can have on life in the city.

We understood that in order to achieve this goal, we needed to collaborate with active stakeholders in the city who share our same values. Such a collaboration could not take the form of a traditional vertical and unidirectional strategy, but instead, required that we expand horizontally and seek out similar platforms and networks that share our ambitions and values and with whom we could collaborate in a productive, egalitarian and creative manner.

Offering a platform for expression

What we had to offer was a well-established design platform able to mobilize the 5 design community, including multi-disciplinary creatives, designers, architects, design educators, educational institutions and motivated individuals. What we asked for in return was involvement and dedication.

Creating alliances and empowering independent active members

We started reaching out to different communities, networks and groups to set the foundations for coalitions and partnerships. The plan was to bring our network in conversation with other networks. We adopted a collaborative approach and launched with an open house inviting the community to participate in building Beirut Design Week 2018. We then went on to launch the Open Calls program in collaboration with partners from the private and non-profit sector, highlighting different possible urban spaces for intervention or even asking how would the kitchen in 2067 look line considering the future of the cities and urban spaces , by using design thinking and design methodologies.

Presenting proposals to the public sector, requesting engagement and facilitation.

The current vision of BDW2018 will manifest through a set of customized projects, exhibitions and activations, demonstrating how organizations (and on a larger scale civil society) can establish a network composed of different stakeholders in the city, and launch a call for action that can incorporate enthusiasts into both the design and implementation phases. he goal has been to adopt viable strategies and programs related to design in T the city, which theoretically could serve as successful models to present to different public sector institutions to adopt and replicate, ideally setting a precedent for a more inclusive and collaborative approach to public and private “space” and “sectors”, introducing the notion of a conjunctional governance approach to the city where dwellers, residents share the responsibility equally.

Ghassan Salameh Managing & Creative Director, Beirut Design Week / MENA Design Research Center

The MENA Design Research Center is a non-profit organization based in Beirut, Lebanon. Founded in 2011, it remains one the region's few institutions that focus on Design as a multidisciplinary tool for social development and research.

In 2012, the center initiated and organized the first Beirut Design Week, which set off the beginning of design weeks in the Middle East & North Africa.

The goal of the organization is to use design research methodologies as tools for the creative and critical development The creative process involved in problem finding & of cultural projects, education and social entrepreneurship. solving -whether in communications, products, systems Through multidisciplinary and participatory team work, strator services- could be applied to a varied scale of disciegies are built and refined in order to reach the most impactplines and fields. The MENA Design Research Center ful and feasible results. The range of activities of the center promotes this diverse understanding of design through include workshop design and facilitation, conferences, the implementation of design research and collaboraseminars, exhibitions, publications and festivals. tive multidisciplinary projects in the region. MENA DRC contributes to a variety of social issues by developing innovative tools through design thinking and co-creation.

The center is also closely linked to design education in order to encourage and guide the participation of designers in the non-commercial, public, and non-profit domains.

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About MENA Design Research Center Since 2015, MENA DRC has developed an extensive internship program, taking on more than 20 interns per year, and training them in a variety of design related disciplines. MENA Design Research Center offers ongoing internships designed to expose qualified applicants to communication skills, coordination skills, organizational structure, design research methods, communication design, and strategic planning. Working at the MENA DRC offers an opportunity for students and recent graduates to begin to integrate themselves into a work environment that is both professional and small enough to receive proper attention and guidance. We believe that all those who have joined our program have benefited highly from working with us. We are always looking for passionate, young, and enthusiastic students and fresh graduates to join our team for our upcoming projects, including our main event: Beirut Design Week.

Mission and Objectives

To develop awareness of the value of design research to any project or organization To work in collaboration with universities and schools to develop this form of methodology and apply it in curricula To link the MENA region to the global world of design research and depict an image of the region linked with ​innovation and progressive thinking through arts and culture To support multidisciplinary cultural exchange between the MENA region and its neighbours To use design research to develop cultural projects with social impact To use design research to formulate critical thinking through cultural projects such as exhibitions, conferences, workshops, etc.

To encourage multidisciplinary teamwork through participatory workshops and events To highlight social and environmental challenges of the MENA region as opportunities for creatives to tackle To teach social entrepreneurship skills to creatives in order to develop ideas into sustainable businesses or organizations To publish information relevant to design research and critical thinking from the MENA region To be inclusive and non-elitist by reformulating the work of the organization to the public through accessible means such as entrance-free festivals and public interventions.

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Doreen Toutikian

President & Founding Director

Doreen Toutikian is an interdisciplinary designer, researcher and a social entrepreneur. She is Founding Director of Beirut Design Week, Co-founder & President of the Board of MENA Design Research Center, and Co-founder of LOOP. She is also an educator on design research methods in various universities and programs, a member of the pedagogical committee of the Academie Libanaise des Beaux Arts, a mentor and juror for student examinations and start-up competitions, a consultant to non-profit organization on design for social impact, and a regular public speaker at various conferences around the world.

Doreen holds a Master degree from Koeln International School of Design in European Design Studies (Germany), a Product & Service Design degree from The Glasgow School of Art (Scotland), and a bachelor in Communication Design from Notre Dame University (Lebanon).

Portraits by Blanche Eid

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BDW 2018 Team

Her book, “Design Education in the Middle East”, which was awarded the Cologne Design Prize in 2010, marked the beginning of her career in Beirut where she set out to build a collective design community and enhance the understanding of design and research in the region. She believes that collaboration is the key to good design.

This belief has inspired her to initiate various projects in order to encourage multidisciplinary teamwork for social innovation. Such projects include “Public Design Intervention: Beirut” (2010), “Desmeem: Rethinking Design though Cross-Cultural Collaboration (2012)”, “Disrupt!/Design!” (2015/16) and “Beirut Design Week” (annual event since 2012). In 2013, Beirut Design Week was awarded the Lebanese Social Economic Award.

Doreen is an advisor to various global networks including the “International Gender Design Network”, the “Board of International Research in Design/BIRD”, a fellow of the Salzburg Global Seminar, and a member of the Young Cultural Innovators of the British Council. She is also an avid traveller, speaks six languages (English, Arabic, French, German, Greek, and Armenian) and lives in between Beirut and Athens.

Ghassan Salameh

Creative & Managing Director

After acquiring a masters degree from European Design Labs in Madrid, Ghassan Salameh set up his studio in Beirut to focus on light, furniture and object designs, gaining from an accumulated experience in print and digital graphics, product design, set design, web and digital interactive design.

As an interdisciplinary conceptual and solution oriented designer, his projects occupy an in-between space where product design and conceptual art meet. Contemporary and experimental, his work is inspired by details from daily life, often unnoticed yet crucial in shaping our experiences.

More importantly, it pays tribute to local craftsmanship and presents it with new possibilities. As a child observing his father, a metal craftsman, at work, he began to think of design as a way to preserve a dying tradition by restoring its original function: problem solving.

He believes that design is about challenging traditional craftsmanship by creating new complexities of form and technique and opening it to new territory; that each object he designs and produces is a celebration of a successful marriage of concept and labor, a fusion of creativity, expertise, history, technology and method.

His experimentation with different materials found in the local market, is a further acknowledgment of traditional handicraft pushed across new limits.

In principle, his work is about having the process of production visible in the final product even if subtly where each step of the work is expressed as both design and artistry.

Vrouyr Joubanian

Head of Academic Programs

Vrouyr Joubanian is a multi-disciplinary designer and design educator. He holds a master’s degree in product design summa cum laude from Académie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts (ALBA) and a second master’s degree in industrial design with a focus on social impact from the University of Arts in Philadelphia in the United States. A former Fulbright Scholar, Vrouyr’s extensive experience in product, service, and systems design, coupled with his expertise in customized design research and impact measurement tools, uniquely informs his human-centered design practice. He currently serves on the faculty of the Department of Design’s Global Design (MA) and Product Design (BA) programs at ALBA, where he also leads the graduate program. Vrouyr is the vice-president and head of academic programs for MENA Design Research Center, where he was also the co-founder of Beirut Design Week. He also serves on the board of Les Ateliers de la Recherche en Design, an international association of francophone design research academics. Fluent in four languages, when not thinking about his next project, Vrouyr goes on long walks with his dog.

Dima Boulad

Head of Entrepreneurial Programs

Dima Boulad is a Lebanese designer currently living in Beirut where she is practicing motion graphics and social design.

Also known as a YES girl, she believes everything is possible if the right minds come together. Dima co-founded Beirut Green Project, a grassroots movement that was born from the need to raise awareness on the importance of having public green spaces in Beirut. She is a TEDx speaker, a board member of the MENA Design Research Centre, a regular mentor for OpenIDEO, and a Salzburg Global Seminar fellow.

Dima studied graphic design at the American University of Beirut and earned her master›s degree in multimedia from IESA Arts and Culture School in Paris.

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Joumana Ibrahim

Advisor to Academic Programs

Joumana Ibrahim graduated with an MA from the London College of Communications (LCC) after obtaining a BA in graphic design and a minor in fine arts from the Lebanese American University. Her focus at LCC was on information design, including her Master’s thesis, focusing on a spatial analysis of Hamra and Geitawi streets in Beirut.

Upon returning to Lebanon in 2006, she worked as an art director at Leo Burnett Beirut, serving a vast array of leading Lebanese and international brands, and winning a number of regional and international awards. These awards made her realize the importance of constantly challenging herself creatively & the value of giving back by helping young aspiring designers hone their talent. She dedicates most of her time teaching courses and workshops at LAU (Lebanese American University).

Joumana is currently working as a free10 lance graphic designer/art director for local and international brands, and is an adjunct faculty at LAU.

Diala Lteif Advisor

Diala Lteif is an interdisciplinary researcher with over six years of teaching and research experience. Born and raised in Beirut, Lebanon, Diala is today a PhD candidate in Planning at the University of Toronto.

Her research focuses on conflict-induced displacement with a particular focus on Beirut. Her research investigates the intersection of critical urban theory with issues of citizenship and human dignity in the city. She is a Trillium awardee, a Fulbright scholar and holds an MFA in transdisciplinary Design from Parsons the New School for Design.

Prior to her doctoral research Diala served for three years as full-time faculty and Deputy Director to the Design Department at the Académie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts (ALBA), where she taught the global design studio to first year masters students and supervised masters thesis students. Preceding her contribution to the Design Department, she was part-faculty in the Interior Design Department teaching undergraduate design courses.

In her professional design practice, Diala plays the role of an Information Architect, bridging between data and graphic design through infographics. She has collaborated with different NGOs to produce compelling visuals that make their data more accessible to a wider audience. Her portfolio includes a series of visuals in collaboration with Lebanon Support on collective action, and infographics on economy under occupation in collaboration with Visualizing Impact.

She was also an active member of the design community in Beirut and served as a board member of the MENA Design Research Center. Over the last few years, she developed her skills as a design trainer by leading interactive hands-on workshops to introduce design-thinking methodologies to a large audience. Among many other projects, she has helped organize several design events such as the Beirut Service Jam (Lebanese edition of the Global Service Jam), Disrupt!/ Design!/ an initiative in partnership with Hivos, and Design Toolbox with GAIA heritage.

Abbas Sbeity Program Manager

Abbas Sbeity is a multi-disciplinary designer and a youth educator. He is currently the program manager of Beirut Design Week. As a member of the MENA Design Research Center, he has been involved in developing Beirut Design Week since 2015.

He is the founder of Architects for Change, a youth organization that focuses on the role of design in community building and sustainable development. The organization empowers young architects and designers through design and socio-cultural practices by providing a platform for extra-curricular education, community engagement, and collaboration.

His professional work combines learning experience design, facilitation, and project management. He designs and facilitates a variety of youth programs and community building projects with local and international organizations, such as Groundwork, LOYAC, Beyond Learning, TeensWhoCode, and Nahnoo.

Abbas’s leadership has been recognized internationally. In 2016, he was selected as a Young Leader by the European Commission to speak at the European Development Days in Brussels. He also received the Hesselbein Medal for Leadership and Civic Engagement from the Hesselbein Global Academy at the University of Pittsburgh in the US. In 2017, he was selected as a Community Solutions Fellow by the US Department of States, he moved to the US to complete the Community Leadership Course by the George Mason University and a professional practicum at Groundwork New Orleans. Currently, he is taking part of the MENA Leadership Academy, a two-year program with the Konrad Adenauer Foundation. He is a fellow of the Young Leaders program by the Swedish Institute, and a member of Ashoka’s Changemakerxchange and MitOst. Abbas is an avid traveler and he loves putting things in order.

Sana Tawileh

Head of Marketing & Communications Sana Tawileh is a strategic marketing consultant with over 25 years of experience across different industries in Europe and the Middle East. Her experience spans diverse sectors, including fast moving consumer goods, social entrepreneurship, cultural management, online marketing and digital production.

In addition, Sana has a masters degree in sustainability and responsibility, an impressive track record of volunteering activity and is involved in projects with high-level social and cultural impact.

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Tatiana Toutikian

Nemer Nabbouh

Design Researcher

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Tatiana is an Industrial and Speculative Designer with rooted background in Interaction Design, Design Research and Collaboration. She designs products, systems, services, and interactions for rethinking the present and influencing the near future based on current trends in society. Tatiana holds a Master of Art in Collaborative & Industrial Design from Aalto University (Helsinki), a minor in the Helsinki Media Lab in the New Media. She also holds a double Bachelor of Arts in Interior Architecture & Product Design.

Tatiana is currently the Design Researcher & Collaboration Manager at the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) Design Research Center where she contributes to creating the theme of the Beirut Design Week, which is the largest design festival in the Middle East since 2012, and the Research that is published from it. She also curates local and international exhibitions around design futures. She is the Local Leader of the Interaction Design Association (IXDA) Beirut Chapter.

Tatiana has previously worked at Frog Design (Shanghai) a global design and service consultancy, at Hello Ruby - an educational book for kids on computers and code that is covered by Wired, TechCrunch, and broke its funding record by a landslide.

Tatiana has also worked on projects for clients such as GSM Mobile, Audi, Unicef, and the ministry of transport in Tokyo, Japan. Tatiana speaks at international and local conferences about the marriage of design fiction and future interactions. Her solo exhibitions and interventions have been featured in Monocle, Design Indaba, Dezeen, DesignBoom, the Future Laboratory among many others.

Eeva Lehto

Design Researcher Eeva comes from a land of over fifty words about snow, to seize the opportunity of developing the Feature Publication, BDW Podcast and content of the program of BDW18. Apart from this, she is currently preparing her master’s thesis in Aalto University School of Art, Design and Architecture (Helsinki, Finland) in a Programme of Collaborative and Industrial Design. Before this, she has completed a Bachelor’s Degree in Design in Aalto University, and Minor Studies in Glass and Ceramic Design in Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University in Istanbul. Working passionately with topics of design management, thematic analysis, and the use of language, she is compiling a research of public sector’s interpretations about design thinking practices.

Speaking fluently four languages (Finnish, English, Turkish and Japanese), and building on other four (Lebanese Arabic, Spanish, French and Swedish), Eeva hopes to take part in many international design events and conferences in the future as well.

Lama Zouein

Production Manager Lama is a freelance designer from Lebanon with cross-disciplinary experience in graphic, web, and industrial design. She is a graduate of Academie Libanaise des Beaux Arts with a Bachelor and Master degrees in Art Direction and Interactive Media and a Master degree from Florence Design Academy in Industrial Design. Lama has been working with Beirut Design Week for many years on a variety of different projects with partners and participants of the event. This year she is the Production Manager, where she ensures well designed and a seamlessly coordinated implementation process for our main exhibitions. She always loves to chat, mostly about food and is very known for her homemade Knefe!

Exhibition Designer

Nemer is an Architect and an interdisciplinary designer. He holds a bachelor’s degree in architectural engineering from Beirut Arab University and a master’s degree in biodigital architecture from Universitat Internacionale de Catalunya, graduating both with distinction. He is driven by his curiosity towards everything design, always aiming at exploring new ideas and fields in design, especially in parametricism and digitalism.

For him, a design project is a living being affected by the ever changing environment containing it, leading him to merge philosophy and psychology with design. He’s built up his experience from being a Lead Designer at TEDxBAUDebbieh to designing and working on various Installations and exhibitions at his university and BDW 2016.

Alongside being a design intern at BDW, he is currently an instructor at his home university, teaching second stage architectural design.

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Tarek Halabi

Exhibition Designer Tarek holds a bachelor’s degree in Architecture from the Lebanese American University. Continuously grasps the opportunity to work in any field remotely related Architecture ranging from conceptual design to building his dog a house. Having lived abroad and in Lebanon, he has developed a strong interest in urban planning believing that any intervention in the city should always take into account the human scale rather than focusing on “bigger is better” mentalities.

Tara Nahas

Exhibition Designer Tara holds a Bachelor’s degree in Interior Design from the Lebanese American University. Because of her love for traveling, she then moved to Barcelona where she got the chance to work and pursue her Master’s degree in Retail Design from ELISAVA. She chose to be part of the exhibition design team as a start for her career in this field.

Khajag Apelian Design Director

Natalie Bahhade Communication Officer

Natalie is currently pursuing her bachelor’s degree in Psychology at Haigazian University. Influenced by her family’s furniture business, and attracted by BDW2018’s inclusive approach, she became part of the communication team. Her passion towards social change fit perfectly with this year’s theme, examining the different ways design can help promote better social conditions.

Jamil Bazzi

Communications Officer 14

Jamil is currently pursuing two bachelor degrees at the American University of Beirut; one in English Literature and one in Media Studies — because one degree is not enough torture. With Beirut Design Week 2018 being his first stepping stone to the professional world, he’s still figuring out how to combine his skills and both his majors into one cohesive unit. Jamil will write about anything in length — except himself.

Khajag Apelian is a lettering artist, type and graphic designer. Having grown up between Dubai and Beirut, and being raised in an Armenian family, Khajag has an affinity for different languages and writing systems, which he has applied to the development of typefaces in many scripts, including Arabic, Armenian, and Latin. He designed Arek, a typeface that was awarded the Grand Prize at Granshan 2010 Type Design Competition, and was among the winners of Letter.2, the 2nd international type design competition organized by the Association Typographique Internationale. He currently operates under the name “debakir” Armenian for “printed type”, and teaches design courses at the American University of Beirut.

Claude Nassar Graphic Designer

Claude’s passion and enthusiasm for design led him to pursue a degree in graphic design at the Notre Dame University. After interning at Impact BBDO, he went on to attend several workshops with the Arabic type design workshop being the most prominent. Since then, Claude has been working as a freelancer on several projects as a brand designer. Being a graphic designer, Claude aspires to merge critical thinking with thoughtful data gathering and analysis from different traditional disciplines, to working on socio-political issues that potentially influence our society through technologies and visuals that the audience can interact with, understand and hopefully get stimulated to think and reflect about the issue in question. He will be attending his Master’s Degree in the non-linear narrative program at the Royal Academy of Art The, Hague.

Rawia Eid

Haress Bassil

Rawia Eid is a communication officer at Beirut Design Week 2018, holding a bachelor degree in Interior Architecture. She is enthusiastic about design for problem solving and building for better communities. As an organized person she loves to share and discuss brilliant ideas and concepts within a team of designers that deliver first class results.

Moreover, she is a free spirit with a passion for nature, travel, and discovering other cultures and traditions of living. She has participated in numerous workshops, volunteer programs and internships and is always looking for an opportunity to learn and grow.

“Emotional Stress Ball”– Khajag Apelian

Communication Officer

Razan Hamdan

Communication Officer Razan Hamdan holds a master degree in architecture from the Lebanese University. As a passionate sketcher, Razan enjoys translating her visions, fascination in nature, and interest in traditional architecture through her drawings. Her second mission is landscape, attending more workshops, and seeking opportunities similar to Beirut design week that will get her more engage more in the design field.

Graphic Designer

Rima Hammoud Graphic Designer

Rima Hammoud is a graphic design student at the Lebanese American university.

She is interested in working in publications.

Her visual style is experimental by nature.

She seeks to use multi-sensory design breathing fresh ideas into the design world.

Typography is a world she enjoys exploring.

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BDW2018 Theme In 2018, Beirut Design Week (BDW) returns for its seventh edition themed “Design and the City: ____”.

Under this theme, designers are invited alongside activists, writers, educators, students etc. to consider design’s transformative role in conceiving of the urban space in such ways that express our needs, desires and dreams as inhabitants of the city.

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“Design and the City: ___________” draws inspiration from local grass-root movements which redress questions of agency and representation vis-à-vis decision-making processes that have direct influence on our lives. These movements provided alternatives for imagining inclusive models for the urban experience. While the viability of these models continues to be debated and explored in several spaces across the city, this year’s theme offers its platform to showcase objects, tools, vocabularies and processes that help create new itineraries for the everyday practice of place-making and reclaim the right to the city.

Design is in every aspect of our life. The endless list of possibilities in the design-scape is what constitutes and remakes our experiences. It calls upon all the creative designers to bring forward their own visions of how their practices can contribute to good governance, social inclusion and environmental justice.

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Design & the City: Social Change

How can architecture, furniture design or jewelry design collaborate with social workers to play a transformative role in the city?

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Design & the City: Environment

How can a fashion designer or a documentary maker engage with nature and make us rethink our rapport to our environment?

Design & the City: Fair-Use

How can the food and beverage industry adopt a design thinking approach that extends from the sourcing of the ingredients to the production of the goods, affecting local economies and contributing to the city’s environmental ecosystem?

Design & the City: Governance

How can architects, urbanists and planners influence state policies related to the reconstruction of a post-war city? And share some lessons learned with other neighboring destroyed cities getting ready for reconstruction?

Design & the City: Access

How can the tech-industries collaborate with designers to reimagine our daily interactions within the city and enhance our urban life? What can smart solutions offer to people who are abled or with special needs, women, children etc.

19 In keeping with this notion, the BDW 2018 theme focuses on searching for what is possible across the horizon of creative practice rather than dwelling on what already exists. It aspires to depart from the current city with its visible and invisible aspects, tangible and intangible realities, private and public spheres, towards an open ground for experimentation. It envisions an alternative shared future with better conditions to live, thrive and engage.

By proposing this theme, BDW2018 asks the following questions: How can designers across the wide spectrum of the creative industry channel ideas and skills to model structures that address blind spots, shortages and problems within the urban experience?

And in what ways can they collaborate with other stakeholders (activists, environmentalists, artisans, entrepreneurs, agriculturalists and food experts, technology consultants, and researchers etc.) to face systemic and supplemental challenges?

This year’s invitation is extended to actors within and beyond the design community in Lebanon who are motivated by the necessity for urban change. By providing the conditions for experimental and strategic coalitions between designers and other experts, BDW introduces its new direction towards encouraging cross-disciplinary initiatives.

BDW is programmed as a participatory and community-led initiative, calling upon stakeholders to take active part in the strategic planning, thematics, initiatives and educational programs which together will make the whole of BDW2018.

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Design & The City: Data Mapping & Access

What do we mean by data? How can we gather data and share findings? Who can access this data? How can this data be used? How can we protect personal data? How can we create awareness about personal data privacy for citizens? What role does design play in all of this?

Data is information that is collected in order to be analysed and used as reference. Depending on the field, it can be objective or subjective, quantitative or qualitative. It may be someone’s personal opinions or perspective, and it can also be concrete facts that most would consider as true. The type of data depends on the goal of the research, and what the researcher is trying to understand and communicate. In recent years, due to digital technologies and the global phenomenon of sharing information that is written and saved, the term ‘big data’ gave rise to question of how to make sense of all this information, and use it for a variety of social, commercial, or political purposes amongst many others.

In this chapter, we focus on the role of data gathering and accessing in relation to the city.

Researchers, engineers, programmers, activists and media advocates have all played vital roles in showing a different side of the city through specific methodologies. Jimmy Elias, a designer, has developed maps based on the perceptions of citizens within their living environment and has juxtaposed them with the overall brand of Lebanon in the media. His goal is to examine real people’s experiences and interpretations of the urban environment and compare them to what the global perceptions seem to be. Claudia Martinez Mansell, an activist, has worked in a refugee settlement to create an actual coherent map of the area that would help in navigation using a balloon. Her goal is accessibility for the inhabitants of the camp. Both Jimmy and Claudia use design methods to map the areas, but for very different purposes. What is however clear in both examples is that residents become resources for creation rather than passive factors. SMEX on the other hand tackles digital data and the issue of privacy, specifically looking at how the Lebanese government uses mobile phone communications from its citizens for legal matters.

The goal of their project is to create awareness, through visualizations made by designers about the issue of privacy, and to share the research and the tools they use in order to teach others how to protect themselves from privacy violation and infringement of human rights.

The aforementioned projects are featured in detail as examples of data mapping and access that have been developed recently in Lebanon, and are exhibited in Beirut Design Week 2018 as part of a co-curated program “Forum on Cities and Designers” with Public Works.

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Mapping the City Perceptions Jimmy Elias

Jimmy Elias, a Lebanese designer, now based in Cologne, Germany, has done a research about city perceptions against its’ branding, as his master thesis in the Koeln International School of Design. In his project, “Mapping the City Perceptions”, having Beirut as one of his case studies, he uses design research methods to contrast the city’s branding process and trigger its socio-psychological dimensions.

What Jimmy argues is that how cities, in this case Beirut, are branded is ill-fitting to the reality. One of the ways in which Beirut is communicated to others by locals and internationals is, that “even though there was a civil war, it is a party city”. However, as Jimmy points out, discussions about the city we do not include the emotions which have effects on the behaviours and phenomena that are taking place. In other words, the discussion should be directed towards why something is happening in the city, rather than solely on what is happening.

Therefore, the statement “people in Beirut, being in a nation of conflict, feel a [sense of] reward for surviving” is aiming to capture the emotions of diverse inhabitants of Beirut, which shows a way one thinks about himself within the city.

As his main method to capture the ethnographic data about perceptions of Beirut, Jimmy did mapping exercises with participants within the city. Using design as a facilitator in these exercises, he asked the participants to write the different words they connote on different areas of the geographical map, as well as the much visited and unvisited places from different demographics.

When one looks at this produced map, that describes certain areas, it is clear that they are not fulfilling their expected function, which is to navigate people through clearly stated locations; rather it is a collective narration guiding the reader through a story based on geographic locations. This type of qualitative and intuitive data might seem useless to someone looking for direction, but it might also be inspiring to others. The mapping adds a very peculiar personal level of understanding to a region. Here, as a designer and not a cartographer, Jimmy uses his creative and intuitive skills to form new meaning to an otherwise uneventful series of streets and alleyways. The value in this form of work is in its capacity to share empirical data that is sourced from hundreds of citizens, adding a new layer of information to an outsider visiting the city.

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Claudia Martinez Mansell & Public Lab

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Greening of Bourj al Shamali

Greening of Bourj al Shamali is a project led by Claudia Martinez Mansell in collaboration with local residents of Bourj al Shamali and Public Lab community. This project serves as a good example of how an open-source low-cost tool has been used to gather useful information, while involving the local community in the process. Bourj al Shamali is a refugee settlement, and the public sector does not provide information about its’ infrastructure. It is shown on formal maps only as grey zones.

Though some international organizations have created maps of Bourj al Shamali, they do not make them public for security reasons. Therefore, Mansell’s project developed a coherent map of the area through aerial images taken with a helium filled balloon with photography gear attached on it. The low DIY aspects of this technique created no barriers to entry, which enabled a lot of involvement from Bourj Al Shamali residents. The Balloon Mapping kit and instructions are shared openly in the platform of Public Lab Community.

The objectives of Greening of Bourj Al Shamali are to support the local community’s efforts in greening the camp, creating opportunities for youth to experiment with Public Lab’s research tools, and use the gathered data to improve the living conditions of the camp.

The lack of a functional map of the area led to taking aerial images of the camp with the balloon kit. Al Houla Association gathered spatial and environmental data to help the inhabitants make informed decisions on greening the camp. As the youth of the camp was looking for opportunities and new challenges, the project got two young mapping enthusiasts (Mustafa and Firas) to explore and grow with the process of mapping. Moreover, the data and knowledge produced is not only meant to advocate for improving the conditions the camp, but also as a wider reflection on the nature of refugee camps.

The inclusive mapping and planning process in the Greening of Bourj al Shamali project is a great example of how design is facilitating the participation of local communities. When the inhabitants are involved and acknowledged as makers, they feel that their input is valued and will make a difference in the future. In addition, the subsequent phase of exhibition and mapping workshop in the main library of the refugee camp will allow other people to contribute further to the map.

Overall, as Claudia explains, the simplicity of the balloon mapping tools set people at ease and almost gamify the experience. “Mapping is about creating a tool that will help visualise a space, but it is also an exercise in perceptions. One of the most fun and enriching parts of the project to date has been the response of the community, and their delight in seeing that it does not require high technology to create a map”.

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Data in the City 26

SMEX

Photo by Alia Haju...‫عليا حاجو‬

Social Media Exchange (SMEX) is a Lebanese media advocacy and development organization who addresses the urgent need for an Arab Information Society through training, research, and advocacy on strategic communications and human rights in the digital world. For their project Data in the City SMEX has created a timeline of all of the cases from the past few years where the Lebanese administrative bodies have made establishments to collect personal information from people, without their knowledge or consent. This timeline is fully accessible, interactive and visualized on their webpage. From the timeline, which starts on year 2013 we can see that when we move towards 2018 the amount of cases is growing together with the rise of new technological gadgets and mobile applications.

The impact SMEX achieves is by creating awareness about how personal data is being collected, and the possibility of anyone accessing it and using it against them. As Mohamad Najem, the co-founder of SMEX points out that the main concern is that currently there are no established policies and guidelines for the gathering and use of personal data. For example, as we can learn from the timeline, in 2014 the Lebanese Cabinet has given security agencies free access to telecommunications media data, which practically means that they can see who you text and call without a warrant. This raises a bigger question of who will use this data and for what purpose.

Will it be used for measuring peoples’ consumerism habits or for evidence in court?

The answer remains vague. One thing is nonetheless true, there is no administration to control this breach of privacy.

How SMEX tries to tackle this problem is by making policies and rights regarding personal data collected by authorities made visible and accessible for the public by sharing and promoting this information in a people-driven manner. Their data is visualised in the timeline making it easy to get an overview of the different cases in chronological order. The written information is simplified and made concrete for people to be able to read it and understand, instead of using bureaucratic jargon.

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Design & The City: Livability & Sustainability How can design improve the liveability of the city?

How can we educate the youth about the value of nature and plants to the urban environment?

Who has the right to experience calmness in the city? What can one possibly make out of cigarette butts which are flooding the streets? With an air conditioning unit on every household and shop front, how can we ensure that the condensed water is not wasted?

In past years, the lack of governmental infrastructure for sustainable development in Lebanon along with the triggers of the trash crisis in 2015, have led to many private initiatives that have sprouted in order to alleviate some of challenges that Beirut is facing. The lack of public green space or recycling infrastructure, the ever-growing noise pollution, and the constant loss of heritage and natural landscape in favor of the real estate sector are just some of the many serious problems from which the Lebanese citizens suffer. While some go to the streets to protest, and others form coalitions in the hope of gaining political power to make positive changes, designers try to come up with creative ways to create pleasant and educational interventions in the urban sphere.

In this chapter we feature four projects that use design methods to tackle these very same challenges, and are part of Beirut Design Week 2018 in collaboration with the AUB neighborhood initiative. The AUB neighbourhood initiative has together with the Center for Civic Engagement and Community Service designed a pedestrian friendly street in Hamra, on Jeanne D’Arc street. The street has been rehabilitated to be an inclusive and an age-friendly model pedestrian street, implemented by the Municipality of Beirut. Amongst over 20 interventions are the Mobile Botanical Garden, the Silent Room, Butt Bolard, and the Conditioned. All four of these projects show that design is playing a role in public space by touching upon sustainability, participatory action, and urban green in terms of livability in the city.

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The Mobile Botanical Garden Greenhand Organization

Greenhand Organization’s initiative the Mobile Botanical Garden, is a bus with an objective to educate people about biodiversity, organic cultivation and the value of conserving endemic species. As a first Mobile Botanical Garden, it goes to different events, schools and universities around Lebanon to educate about native species and how to grow and sustain them.

The chairman of Greenhand Organization, Zaher Redwan tells, that the long term goal is to establish permanent public botanical gardens in Lebanon.

The Greenhand organization has acquired a knowhow of how to maintain and sustain different species in a small confined space, with no direct sunlight, that moves around the city. This knowledge can be transferred towards the growing of native species in limited spaces in the city as an antidote to the fact that urbanization in Beirut is drastically reducing the greenery.

At first glance the Mobile Botanical Garden might seem just like a truck carrying plants, but actually design has played a role in executing the physical amenities, as well as the experience it offers. Moreover, though the bus has a new motor, the outer parts are conserved from an old Lebanese bus to preserve the authenticity. In addition, a great deal of upcycling, like rehabilitated wooden pallets and other eco friendly measures like solar panels have been used creatively to create the Mobile Botanical Garden.

The location of different species and type of plants on different levels within the bus is an outcome of design solutions based on research of sustaining plants in a moving environment. At the same time user experience is taken into account to ensure a clear and educational visit into the confined space full of plant species. Moreover, each species is tagged with written information.

Greenhand organization offers seedling kits of native plants which are made easy to maintain even for an inexperienced plant grower. The importance of the educational and engaging aspects of Mobile Botanical Garden is to teach people the value of native species, since as Zaher Redwan explains, their “core objective is to conserve the flora of Lebanon”. In order to reach the conservation, people need to know what they are conserving and why.

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The Silent Room Nathalie Harb

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Nathalie Harb presents silence as a resistance for the noise and visual pollution of the city in the form of her Project Silent room.

The giant pink structure was first designed, constructed and made open to the public in Beirut Design Week 2017, and in BDW2018 it was moved to Jeanne D’Arc street to join the other interventions focusing on livability and sustainability in the city. The concept behind the silent room was to set it up at a typically noisy area in the city and invite the public to go upstairs into a totally sealed off room and enjoy a few minutes of utter silence.

The goal was not only to create an environment of relaxation for the visitors, but to also show the value of silence; considering it a luxury for those who can afford it. “Our cities are often configured in such a way that underprivileged communities are the most affected by higher noise pollution—think roads, airports, industry,” said Harb. “Urban segregation can be mapped through noise variations across the city. Noise pollution, as experienced differently between rich and poor inhabitants of the city, represents a social injustice.”

Nathalie a scenographer by day, uses her skills in creating intimate spaces along with fellow architects and sound designers 21db, to create a social experiment that really makes people aware of how much noise they are constantly subjected to, and how this influences their stress levels, mood and overall health. The project was an astounding success since its opening, where in the first week hundreds of people came to a parking lot and stood in queue to experience these few moments of silence.

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Butt Bollard

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Adrian Müller

Together with AUB Neighborhood Initiative, an AUB architecture graduate Adrian Muller has designed and implemented cigarette recycling receptacles where people can throw their cigarette butts on the streets.

The collected butts are recycled into protective layers for surfboards by Johlin Kehdy from Recycle Lebanon. The project has been executed first time in January 2018 in by the AUB campus gate during AUB’s launch of tobacco free campus.

Lebanon has one of the highest cigarette consumption rates per capita. As a result of smoking, the used cigarette butts are toxic litter, containing up to 4,000 chemicals such as lead and cadmium, which are trapped in the cigarette filter. Being not only toxic, the cigarette butts are also plastic waste.

Unfortunately, 94% of the water in Lebanon is contaminated with microfibres, and cigarette butts are partly contributing to this number.

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Conditioned

Students of AUB, Department of Architecture and Design

Christelle Moubrak & Amir Moujaes (car parts), Nour El Hout & Reem Mikati (gate wooden boxes) Tala Chehayeb & Yara Fares (suspended pipe), Aya El Husseini & Baraa Al Ali (trapezoidal woodboxes) Teachers: Rana Haddad, Pascal Hashem In the project Conditioned, AUB design students show a simple solution how air conditioning units can increase the greenery of Beirut. The students have designed alternative plant containers adequate to urban spaces in order to create green walls in the city. The location under the AC’s drain pipes creates self-watered plant systems and simultaneously recycles the cooling water.

Round Table Discussion

Design for Arrival: Refugees, Transitory Populations, and Sanctuary Cities

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Design & The City: Round Table Discussions Few cities inspire as much praise and as much criticism as Beirut. A site of endless beauty and possibility but also a place marked by its disappointments and failures, Beirut is nothing if not a contradiction.

This year’s BDW Talks will take Beirut’s many contradictions as serious points of inquiry.

Looking at the many ways in which the city, through its services and its built environment, shapes our urban existence, we will ask how design might make Beirut a better, more welcoming place. Exploring topics as diverse as immigration, public services, and education, this year’s edition of BDW Talks asks not what the city is but rather what it could become.

Panelists

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Daniel Kerber (Germany)

Cities are destinations. Since at least the 18th century, it has been nearly impossible to imagine the city without also considering urban migration as one of its central concerns.

Internal displacement, industrialization, and subsequent wars have historically driven diverse populations into urban centers around the world, as they seek employment, sanctuary, and upward mobility. Today that pattern continues in greater force than ever. Statistics show that there are currently 65 million people who have been forced from their homes, and over one-third of them are considered refugees. Taking Beirut as a case study, in this panel, we will consider how design can help cities not just react to the crisis of immigration but instead prepare for the arrival of new city-dwellers. We will look at how refugees have been integrated into the city through formal structures and institutions, and propose ways in which new systems, products, and services might develop a culture of inclusivity, wherein refugees, immigrants, and transitory populations are not a burden but rather contribute to their own wellbeing and to the urban environments they inhabit. By addressing the central question of how we can design cities for the arrival of new populations, we will address larger concerns in design history and theory about cultural values, participatory 39 methodologies, and Do-It-Yourself (DIY) infrastructures.

Daniel is the founder and CEO of More Than Shelters, an organization that aims to utilize creative technologies to their full potential for social impact. Daniel has been working and researching within the overlaps between architecture, art and design; and through MTS, is applying informal architecture, cutting edge product design, social and ecosystem design into the humanitarian context. Their work is also carried out in the form of training and socio-economic involvement; including training women and single-mother households in Zaatari camp (Jordan) in entrepreneurship and encouraging bottom-up initiatives. The company has received awards from the German government, ZEIT Stiftung and the BMW Foundation.

Salwa Jabri Salwa Jabri studied Architecture, worked in architectural design and construction in Los Angeles and Saudi Arabia. She is now co managing Social Support Society project of Relief and Educational Assistance (REA) for Syrian refugees in the Beqaa since 2012, helping in the education of 3000 children.

Elizabeth Saleh Elizabeth Saleh works in the fields of political and economic anthropology, with a special focus on labor, gender, resistance and social transformation. In 2015, Elizabeth commenced a new ethnographic study examining the reconfiguration of Syrian labor at the interface between Beirut’s formal and informal economies. Most of her fieldwork takes place at a scrapyard in a working class neighborhood in Beirut, where she explores the effects of the Syrian conflict and the policies of the Lebanese state toward migration, labor and waste management in relation to the prosperity of the scrap metal industry.

Mona Fawaz Mona Fawaz is an Associate Professor of Urban Studies and Planning and the Coordinator of the Graduate Programs in Urban Planning, Policy, and Design at the American University of Beirut. Her scholarly interests stem from the imperative of making cities more inclusive, particularly from the perspective of enabling low-income dwellers to take part in shaping their cities. Fawaz is also the founder and coordinator of the Social Justice and the City Program at the Issam Fares Institute, a research-based platform that seeks to influence public policy making by supporting ongoing advocacy work with research-based evidence to strengthen their role.

Joseph Rustom Joseph Rustom is a Lebanese architect with ten years of experience in the field of cultural heritage conservation. Since 2008, he is preparing a doctoral thesis in urban planning at the Brandenburg Technical University on the impact of religious endowments on urban projects in Late Ottoman and French Mandate Beirut.

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Round Table Discussion

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Design + Governance: Forging a New Public Sector Around the world, especially in Western Europe, design has assumed a prominent role in governance and public services. In these contexts, designers develop public services, consult, and train government employees as well as design solutions to social problems. Not only has this move validated design as a serious approach to problem-solving, it has also made for a more efficient and better-serving public sector, especially in urban spaces.

The public sector in Lebanon stands to learn a great deal from this model, especially because the collaboration inherent to the design process resonates a great deal with Lebanese culture. In this panel, we will begin the work of putting design and governance into conversation to see how such an approach might yield improved social services, impact political processes, and help community development initiatives.

Mona Hallak Mona El Hallak is an architect and heritage preservation activist, currently the director of the AUB Neighborhood Initiative whose aim is to support Ras Beirut’s livability, 41 Panelists vitality and diversity, while promoting critical citizenship among the AUB community. She led several campaigns and succeeded in the preservation of the Barakat Building - now Beit Beirut, the museum of memory of the city. She is an active member of Beirut Madinati, a political movement that started as an electoral campaign for the 2016 Beirut municipal elections; and a founding member of two Tanja Rosenqvist (Denmark, Australia) NGOs: IRAB for the preservation of the Arab world’s musical heritage; and ZAKIRA for Tanja Rosenqvist is a designer turned transpromoting photography and its role in docu- disciplinary researcher and international menting and preserving memory. In 2013, development practitioner. She has a keen she was given the Ordre National du Mérite interest in public service innovation and au grade de Chevalier from the French governance in both low- and high-income Republic in recognition of her achievements countries and believe design can provide in preserving the architectural and cultural great value in these contexts. For the past heritage of Beirut.

8 years, Tanja has has conducted in-depth design research in a range of contexts; Katrie Lowe from public hospitals in Denmark, to private homes in Poland, rural villages in Ethiopia, Katrie is the founder of Urban Curiosity, market places in Cambodia and Vietnam a two year research project to learn about and local governments and communities cities through five different lenses: Density, in Indonesia. She is particularly passionate Affordability, Liveability, Sustainability, and about the use of design methods to create Technology. She is a civil engineer of seven social and/or political change and to improve years with experience in both Australian public service provision by involving, often and Chinese water and urban infrastructure unheard and vulnerable population groups, sectors. Passionate about creating sustainin research and design processes. able integrated cities, and working to inspire those around me to lead and foster collabJoanna Choukeir oration. She aims to coordinate diverse disciplines into an integrated outcome.

Joanna is a social design practitioner, She is currently on a two year sabbatical researcher, speaker and lecturer with 15 from her role at AECOM to run the Urban years of experience in the UK and Lebanon.

CurioCity project.

She is the Design Director at Uscreates, a London-based consultancy pioneering innoKatrie is a former Prime Minister’s Austravative work to improve health and wellbeing lia-Asia Endeavour Award Fellow, ACC-Austhrough design. They regularly work with tcham Young Leaders Scholar, and inaugovernments on projects such as http://www. gural Australia China Youth Dialogue and carecity.london/ and https://mayorschalChina-Australia Millennial Project delegate. lenge.bloomberg.org/.

She has presented papers at the Singapore International Water Week Conference and Joanna completed a PhD in design for social International Water Sensitive Urban Design integration at the University of the Arts Conference, and is the recipient of the UDIA London. Alongside research and practice.

NSW Roy Sheargold Scholarship, which has She is an associate lecturer at the University allowed her to go on this journey. of the Arts London, Kingston University and Ravensbourne University, and a fellow of the Royal Society for the encouragement of the Arts, Manufacturers and Commerce (RSA).

Carla Aramouny

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Panelists Carla Aramouny is an architect and assisRound Table Discussion

Design Education in Lebanon: Teaching Students to Make Cities Better

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The aim of this panel is to initiate a series of conversations about the role of university-level design programs in addressing the needs of the cities. While higher education is one of the largest industries in Lebanon, institutional structures have sometimes made collaboration difficult. This panel will overcome these limitations by bringing together design program administrators to have a conversation about how undergraduate and graduate design programs in a variety of disciplines envision their relationship to the cities they inhabit. How might the design education community advocate for design as a whole in Beirut? What pedagogical practices are unique to the design disciplines? To what extent should design programs prepare students for a job market, and to what extent should they prepare students to engage with larger social issues? What is the role of the higher education in determining what Lebanese design is in the first place? How should design schools shape or intervene in the communities around them? These questions will serve as a launching point for a larger discussion about what design education can and should be doing in Beirut and its neighboring cities.

tant professor at the American University of Beirut, Department of Architecture and Design (ArD), where she currently holds the position of Architecture coordinator.

She has a Master of Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, and a Bachelor of Architecture from the Lebanese American University. Prior to joining AUB, Carla practiced architecture in several renowned offices in Beirut and New York, and now runs her own INDEX: practice in parallel to her academic work.

Design to Improve Life Her research and teaching involve new INDEX: Design to Improve Life® is a Danish material and digital techniques in design, NPO with global reach. We Inspire, Educate with an interest in themes of locality, and Engage in designing sustainable solulandscape morphologies, and architections to global challenges ture hybridity. At ArD, Carla founded and is currently the director of the ArD Tech We Inspire by showing people how their Lab, a digital design and fabrication unit, personal lives and the lives of people around bringing advanced fabrication and research them can be improved by Design to Improve resources to the students. She has orgaLife. We do this through INDEX: Award, the nized the yearly lecture-based event Talk20 biggest design award in the world, worth at ArD, and more recently the Beirut Global €500.000 and widely recognized as the Summer School program (GSS Beirut) in most important design award in the world. collaboration with the Institute for Advanced INDEX: Award showcases the positive Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC), in Spain. outcome and effect of the world’s best examples of Design to Improve Life addressMelissa Plourde ing important issues such as clean water, education, energy production, overpopulaMelissa Plourde Khoury is the associate tion, elderly care, etc. chair in the department of Arts and Design at the Lebanese American University.

We Educate by using real-life challenges as She specializes in teaching publication learning resources in schools and the talents design, typography, design history and of school as a resource for society. We do visual culture. Her research interests are this through Design to Improve Life Educain design education and Lebanese visual tion, where we put structured creativity on culture. Melissa’s writings have been the learning agenda and educate students, published in international journals on design teachers, educators and decision makers and presented at various conferences. to create sustainable solutions through a certified education curriculum and design Mariano Alesandro competitions Mariano is looking into the future’s horizon, We Engage by using our Design to Improve analysing how the designs in INDEX: Award’s Life Investment program, working as a pipeline work together, identifying design connector between designers and investors trends, the drivers of change behind them, – helping them realize sustainable design and how they can help solving the United with the potential to solve global challenges.

Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

Our aim with the program is to bring as many Design to Improve Life solutions as possible to their full potential, in order to foster positive impact in the world.

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