FALL/WINTER 2021
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Playing with Sandra Al Rishani In the wake of the port explosion, thoughts of play were far from most people’s minds. In times of turmoil, play perhaps seems superfluous, a luxury. So why were Sandra Al Rishani ‘99 and fellow architects, Nada Borgi and Etienne Bastormaji, inspired to focus on children’s play space in their post-blast reconstruction initiative Let’s Play? Like so many others, on August 4th, Rishani’s life flipped upsidedown. As an architect and expert in urban development, her skills were in high demand from a number of organizations. She wanted to participate; however, grieving her own losses, she struggled to throw herself into these immediate relief efforts. “You had two groups of people.” She explains. “There were people that were just not ready to deal with what had happened directly and others that just went straight to work. It was beautiful. But honestly, we [Sandra, Nada, and Etienne] were the opposite. We were super depressed and wanted to hide. We would go to meetings with all of these amazing initiatives, but we’d only help very superficially because we weren’t ready to join in so fast.”
Sandra Al Rishani enjoying her new playspace at École Secondaire des Filles de la Charité
rather than using the opportunity as a catalyst for positive change. “Suddenly, because of the explosion, people wanted things to go back to exactly the way they were, but
“Children need
the freedom and time to play. Play is not a luxury, it is a necessity. ”
So, she and her Let’s Play colleagues took some time to process and reflect on ways they could help that would have a meaningful and lasting impact on the community. As Rishani moved around the city, she was particularly struck by the extent of the damage to the 150 schools impacted. Furthermore, she was frustrated with the emphasis on rebuilding the city exactly as it was,
- Kay Redfield Jamison
they weren’t that great before. The explosion was devastating, but it’s not like we had been living in heaven,” she asserts. For Rishani, one of the city’s mainissues pre-blast was its lack of public space. With a Master in Urban Development and Urban Planning from University College London, as well as a Master in Architecture from Princeton University, Rishani has long been an advocate for reimagining city landscapes and
structures as more inclusive and community-oriented spaces. Her successful Beirut-based architecture and design studio, [hatch], which she founded with Nada Borgi in 2013, focuses on context-based, environmentally-aware projects which emphasize narratives, engagement and connection to local and global communities. Because of the breadth and severity of the damage, no one appeared to be talking about public space in the context of post-blast reconstruction. Understandably, it didn’t really seem like a priority. “It’s so secondary if people are homeless.” Rishani admits. However, Beirut’s lack of public spaces has long been an imminent issue. Many feel that they don’t have the right to public space, or the appropriate public spaces available to them in the city. Perhaps, Rishani posits, this is due to the fact that growing up in Lebanon, public space wasn’t ‘practiced.’ Many grow up playing in their apartments, or private gardens, rather than community parks, which are few and far between.
