Shoreline Walk
IGA role: Assistance in design development and supervision
Collaboration: Gustafson Porter, London
Location: Beirut Central District
The city of Beirut in Lebanon is the site of a new landscape project where a lost city coastline has become the inspiration for the creation of a series of new urban spaces. This line between the old city and the new reclaimed area of Beirut is to reconnect the city centre with the shorefront through the Shoreline Walk linking four new urban spaces. Those squares are now part of the domain of Solidere, the Lebanese Company for the Development and Reconstruction of Beirut Central District which faces the challenge of bringing a new population back to the heart of the city.
The four spaces of the Shoreline Walk will provide areas to pause and for occupation. Research into each space revealed remnants of the character of the pre-war city that had been forgotten or destroyed. These remnants provided the inspiration for the four diverse spaces, each of which reveal elements of memory from the past. Each “memory” generates the development of an atmosphere, aligned with the facilities and functions required by a contemporary city to create a network of spaces and an evolving promenade.
