Olivia

The new district of Tripoli city in Lebanon has been subject to an increasing demand for residential and commercial spaces after 2012. The real-estate developers and landlords in the area raced to fulfill the market demand.

Yet, this rapid real-estate development was irrational and arbitrary in many ways. In the last decade, the number of residential buildings increased dramatically, creating a massive concrete jungle mortifying any identity or aesthetic value to the city. As a result of this huge supply, demand started to decrease; yet, prices remained unchanged.. And investors were searching to revive their investments through the creation of attractive products.

This project, located on the southern entrance of Tripoli, facing a university campus and a hospital, had to become a landmark, a gate, and a facade for the new city eastern expansion.

The developer had already started the architectural studies with a local architectural firm. Nevertheless, he was unsatisfied with the architectural designs and was willing to reconsider it, until we proposed a new concept in design, very different from the local designs, convincing him that through innovation and aesthetic value, he could compete with other developers.

And since the area is subjected to certain rules and regulations such as stone cladding, set back, and land exploitation; we re-arranged the spaces in a way that it could generate a nice innovative form away from the typical residential building that surrounds it.

The main architectural elements that we worked on are:

– Wide panoramic openings

– Identity of form

– Quality of dwell