1.

Throughout a year of insecurities, catastrophes and disasters, the first realization is that Covid has changed the way we should live. We need to think about new ways to design our living environment, at whichever scale we see fit, to promote and protect human life: how to rethink our bodies, how to design the objects that surround us, how to redesign the homes that we inhabit, what functions they must incorporate, how to grow communities or re-naturalize public spaces, how to reinvent our cities taking advantage of digital communications in times of confinement and broadly, how we define our relationships with others in a time of change.

2.

August 4th have shed light on all the instability that has been surrounding the development of the city of Beirut. In the absence of clear guidelines, the city faces today a dark and vague future. It is time to reconsider the relationship of the city to its suburbs, waterfront and city center, the lack of local planning and cross sectorial master plans, the preservation of the heritage v/s the complexity of its urban development, the city growth and increased urbanization, the infrastructure/service systems that have over the years become increasingly deficient, the lack of public spaces and the urban divide and inequality that have only grown deeper since.