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Lebanese Re-Designed Typology

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Pixelatism

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Building Typology

To change or redesign the building typology, we must understand and know the architectural elements of the original typology and to locate the issues to re-treat them in the right way, or change them completely, and by time and thanks to architecture, always find the best ways to upgrade and update the architecture product by introducing new functions based on the habitant’s needs and social upgrading of lifestyle.

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Time by time, the world is introducing new implementations to human’s life, as well as the situations also provide for the human new needs to create a function for them and for that architecture must serve the situation in updating many notions and can drop also many from the typology. Due to many current implementations, the new redesigned typology of the traditional Lebanese house is shown in the diagram in which it shows the direct editing on the morphology of the building and how it is changed due to many situations that doesn’t occur to be added only due to outdoor situations that directly implement on the habitant daily life and routine in which it must be edited, changed or redesigned. The importance of redesigning the typology is to provide flexibility between architecture and the habitant, it must simplify and aid his lifestyle, time and movement and not to harden it more, since architecture can change a lifestyle, aid it or damage it…

Design Planning

Design planning comes as an important change in order to reconcile the importance of reconsidering new circulation and distribution of the functions of any type of building. Providing examples of typical Lebanese house plan and the updated version of the redistribution of the plan and functions more functional and cohesive manner in terms of circulation and functions.

Creating a naturally lit corridor that connect two separated entities, the separated entities formed and function as one private and one public, the fully glazed corridor connects the two entities separating and connecting them together.

Figure 68: Typical Lebanese Plan

Figure 69: Updated Plan - Two Versions -

Volumetry

The cubical form that the Lebanese typology don’t attain the full stable circulation and doesn’t provide the needed functions for a full-fledged architecture product, yet it functions for a period of time according to era, number of needed functions, spatial entities and built area. As the functions of a residential building for example is increasing and become more important by time that the human needs must have like homeoffice, storage room or pantry, mechanical room, gaming room or separate dining room…etc. many of these new introduced functions is being forced in the typical typology, by time these functions became needs, due to the pandemic, home-office became a need, flexible circulation became a must, gaming and entertainment room became much usable that normal bedroom and many functions that has been added by time due to daily additions to the society and community. Human needs are identified by time and through the advancement of lifestyles and human daily routine in life treatment, yet architecture came to serve the needs of the habitant by providing him his needs, by upgrading and updating the typologies and designing volumetry that serves the functions and daily needs of the habitant.

Figure 70: Lebanese Typical Cubic Volumetry

Figure 71: Re-designed Volumetry

Sustainability

Sustainability is a very important property in this typology, and it performs and act as a regenerated power and power of reflection from the relying on incoming resources to a self-sufficient building that reflects outward not inward getting the usage and importance of sustainable designs and regenerated power from natural elements of the environment, that has been forgotten and must be reused and implement it on the neo-industrial designs.

1- Green roof is an important sustainable tool to keep the indoor warm in the cold weather and temperate in the hot weather

2- The solar energy provides 24/24 natural electricity from sunlight by day and stored power for the night

3- Rain water gathering underground tank is an important tool to use natural water storing and sustainable tool in treating rain water.

On-site treatment of the architectural product is an important strategy, it defines the building’s location, orientation and footprint built-up area, topography, slanted hill or cliff, all these specifications included to know how to design best design and most significantly flexible design and site specific as well as not damaging the environment nor the urban fabric. In Lebanon, the topography is not a flat land, mostly slanted hills and cliffs, so the notion of treating the design on-site is a very important strategy, yet it can be very strong design tool or very destructive tool. Due to ignorant builder and traditions, the nature is slowly damaged and many old buildings and threaten to collapse due to buildings that were not built by good strategy and perfected calculations that were relied on human unskilled senses.

Figure 72: Traditional vs Studied site treatment

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