Ras Al Chaquaa’,
EXTREME SPORT CENTER.
In the following project, I explored the qualities of an
Extreme Site in Hamat, Ras Al Chaquaa, a rocky Lebanese vertical cliff landing
near the sea with a particular interest to me.
Hamat village is a very interesting village since it has an
army airport, a vehicular tunnel on the highway, and the old sea road has 3
tunnels: a vehicular, pedestrian and train tunnel.
Ras Al chaqu’a sea shore is the only area that has not any active
program on it, although it is the most beautiful, extraordinary zone of the whole
area.
An extreme sport center would be perfect in these extreme
site conditions, where this program turns the cliff from an obstacle to an
opportunity besides where Architecture will be a living organism that survives
off of the behavior of human activity. So it is about an extreme performative architecture
where the space will be experienced through programmatic events.
The Extreme Sport Center will include a Rock Climbing, Caving,
Harbormaster and a Nature Center Museum programs.
To start with, 3 strategies were proposed: The first one is
where the vertical connection is the
distributor of the different programs in the project, the second strategy is
where the pedestrian tunnel is the distributor creating a skywalk on the top of
the cliff and a seawalk down at the sea level, among the different programs ,
and the third one, which is the chosen one, is that; since in the cliff many
things are hidden than they reappear (like pedestrian, vehicular and train
tunnels), the idea in this strategy is playing the game of appearing/
disappearing/ reappearing functions or volumes or circulation or light… with creation a sense of surprise, drama while
walking in the project.
To continue with, 3 massing were done, the first is very
literal with the problem of long walking distances, the second was much more
elaborated where an equation was put which is: Heaviness of the Cliff where the
volumes of the Functions will take place verses the Lightness of the Envelope (façade)
where the Circulation will take place. This massing opened big outlooks especially
after thinking about the construction method of this Extreme Sport Center.
As a result, Scaffolding is the construction method picked
and its unit selected is a “wallwalkers scaffolding system”. This unit has
special technical parameters: it should be hooked 1m in the cliff or 3m in it,
it has platforms of 2.5m and between each unit we have to have 8m. So a modular
system of Scaffolding with its cited dimensions is now hooked on the cliff.
After hanging this Grid system of Scaffolding, I started to play between those
grids to form two different paths each one on a different levels (1m or 3m);
those two paths will be one a public circulation path(for visitors) (hooked on
3m) and one a private circulation path (for workers) (on 1m). This exercise was
very much similar to Le Corbusier Free Plan and its application vertically on
the cliff among the hanged points of the Scaffolding acting as a structure. The
remained platforms are only the one participating in the circulation of the
project. To add, all the vertical elements will act as vertical circulation,
and all the horizontal elements will act as platforms.
Many intentions were behind this final massing since we are
now more experiencing the view while exposing the circulation outside, working
more on the Nature Context while having a system of caves inside the cliff,
ending up with One entity of the whole project, working on the interesting equation
cited before and breaking the long verticality of the cliff.
So as a final result, the mountain is now:
-a Mediator between inside and outside
- Formation of a Dynamic Landscape
- Formation of a Performative Architecture
- The construction method “Scaffolding”, used to drill the
caves, is remained in the project to integrate its design and serve its
functions
-It is a smart idea to remain the Scaffolding in the design
of the project since it takes a big investment to allocate it on site.
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