Jessica Nassar

Nahr El Kalb is characterized by the fact that it is the only green strip in the middle of a series of urbanized areas.

All the way from Beirut to Dbayeh to Jounieh, the Lebanese coast does not hold such a distinct morphology. A big mountain next to the sea was carved by a river over the years creating an area that is tough to build on.

The change in scenery and space is so distinctive that you go from a wide, highway, sea view to a narrow passage between mountains separated by a river.

But it wasn’t like that before; Nahr El Kalb was actually a stronger, cleaner flow of water that reached the sea easily. So along the years civilizations had seen it as a natural barrier that made them stop their journey. Thus, it grew to be a separation between territories, just like it is now separating Maten region from Keserwen.

This stop became an area for invaders to leave their mark. From bridges to aqueducts to around 17 stèles, Nahr El Kalb gained an added value to its beauty and became theoretically the ultimate destination.

 However, this destination goes unnoticed due to many problems. First, driving on the highway in high speed gives you no time to look around. Second, the access turn is so hard and is so close to the mountain that you can’t see anything. Third, if you want to actually have a hike there and see the beautiful heritage you can’t park your car, you can’t walk neither near the steles because of the traffic and noise, nor up on the mountain because it is too isolated and can be scary.

To start, I redirected the car access to Nahr El Kalb going up to Zekrit, into an easier, smoother one that goes through the other mountain, thus leaving the touristic area for pedestrians only.

In terms of location, I thought: Why not build on top of the mountain and create a landmark just like Christ le Roi seen from everywhere. But then, I would not be serving the area underneath it.

So I looked into the spatial experience next to the river and subdivided it, for example the area affected the most by the noise would have the largest part of the enclosed masses creating a calmer area inside. 

The masses can follow degradation from our perception of Christ Le Roi going down.

Another aspect is the longitudinal feature of the passage. So why not create masses that act as escorts?

Plus, the access can be from the sea where I accentuate the relation sea/river, river/sea through the pedestrian’s trajectory.

Taking into consideration a combination of the previous aspects, I experimented with some options of placement and fluidity.

And so the enclosed paths are the main element in the project; leading you through the steles or the natural surroundings, it can create spaces, lead to a space, get connected to another path, and so on…

The paths will have functions that compliment what is already there, along with combining education and leisure. From restaurants, event space and sports to workshops and spaces hosting items about the area’s culture. It will be a public destination in a region that lacks greenery and proper public sites. Especially that all the public areas are getting privatized (for example Marina).

 Here you can see examples of paths playing important roles in discovering cities or which go into a museum like the BMW museum that is organized around the timeline of the car’s production. A timeline is important in understanding the history of Nahr El Kalb, so I would consider an organization around that.

An idea of how the paths can be integrated into the scenery.