URBAN TRANSFORMATIONS A PORTFOLIO
AYA MOHANNA 2021
Highly Motivated Architect and Urban Researcher, specializing in Social Equity, Urban Resilience and Climate Adaptation
AYA MOHANNA ARCHITECT - URBAN RESILIENCE
Looking for professional opportunities in Sustainable Urban Development .
ARCHITECTURAL EXPERIENCE
LIFE PROJECT 4 YOUTH, BEIRUT - LEBANON
FEB/2020-Present
Architect, design and execution of a youth integration center in Bourj Hammoud
MOSAICO STUDIO, ROME - ITALY www.linkedin.com/in/aya-mohanna
Beirut, Lebanon +39-327-383-4185 ayamh@live.com
EDUCATION LA SAPIENZA UNIVERSITY, ROME Ph.D.: Urban Composition (2021) Thesis Topic: Urban Resilience & Social Equity in Alexandria, Egypt Honors: summa cum laude
LEBANESE UNIVERSITY, BEIRUT MS in Architecture (2017) Thesis Topic: Peri-Urban Post-Industrial Rehabilitation B.A. in Architecture (2015)
CERTIFICATES COURSES: Nature-Based Solutions (UNEP), Resilience in the Global South (XDelft) AA: Aquatic Ecotone Preservation NAHNOO: Effective Communication LOYAC: NLP Communication
LANGUAGES ARABIC ENGLISH ITALIAN FRENCH
Native C2 C2 C1
SKILLS AutoCad (2D & 3D) MS Project Sketchup Modeling Photoshop & InDesign Microsoft Office GIS Analysis Free Hand Sketching Photography Efficient Communication
JAN-MAR/2020
Part-time Architect, conceptualization and design of public installations
ARCHITECTURAL INTERNSHIPS G3A, MOROCCO (2017) SKP, LEBANON (2014-2015)
LACECO, LEBANON (2016) DAR AL-HANDASAH, LEBANON (2013)
URBAN RESILIENCE EXPERIENCE ALEXANDRIA, EGYPT
2017-2021
Urban & Environmental Analysis of Alexandria’s Hydro Risk Profile Strategic Planning, Urban Resilience in the Alexandrian Peninsula Academic Representative in the Delta Alliance Workshop in Alexandria
PUERTO RICO
2019-2020
Project Lab Co-Director for San Juan’s Disaster Risk Reduction Plan
MIAMI, FLORIDA
2019
Research Associate in the Center for Hydro-generated Urbanism Organizing Member for authority advocacy sessions in Florida
DELFT, THE NETHERLANDS
2019
Academic Collaborator with the Delft Institute for Water Education
ACADEMIC EXPERIENCE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA - GAINSEVILLE, USA
MAR-AUG/2019
College of Design, Construction and Planning - Center for Hydro-Generated Urbanism Teaching Assistant, Researcher & Jury Member
LA SAPIENZA UNIVERSITY - ROME, ITALY
NOV/2017 - OCT/2018
Faculty of Architecture, Master’s Design Lab of Urban Morphology Course collaborator & Lecturer
VOLUNTEERING CYCLING GUIDE | 2016
ART TEACHER | 2015
Cycling Circle Eco Tours - Lebanon
Mob-Art refugee school - Lebanon
SECURITY GUARD | 2016
ACTIVIST | 2014 - 2016
Horsh Beirut - Lebanon
NAHNOO - Photojournalist - Lebanon
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS Mohanna, A. (2020). Informality in Egypt: Rethinking resiliency in vulnerable communities. In 1st ICONA International Conference on Architecture. Italy. Mohanna, A. (2019). Fragmented Cities: Reviewing sub-communities in the Contemporary Metropolis. In U+D, URBANFORM AND DESIGN. Mohanna, A. (2018). Cosmotic, Aquatic. Exploring the potential of computational design in the preservation of aquatic ecotones. In the International Conference on Computational Methods Mohanna, A. (2017). Stitching Peri-Urban Realms Through Quarry Rehabilitation: The Case of Nahr El Mot. (master's thesis). Lebanese Univesity, Beirut. References Upon Request
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Architect and PhD Candidate under the urban composition branch of the Sapienza University of Rome. Often involved in organizations in Lebanon focusing on civil advocacy and social equity. Her PhD topic revolves around cities with marginalized communities and their risk mitigation capacity under the circumstances of climatic events. She is drawn to informal communities and to the urban sociological aspects of these gatherings. Along with being a TA and lecturer in Rome and Florida, he participated in several architectural internships. Given her topics of interest, she is looking for an opportunity in the sustainable urban tracAk.
It all started with a visiting school with the AA Associtation in Jordan. An immediate interest in environmental design was born. The contect selected for this portfolio is a collection of design and academic works that best represent my writing and creative capacities in the field.
V. South American Resilience
IV. EcoTransformation
VI. Reading Roman morphology
CONTENTS
I. Urban Future of Water Conflicts II. Vulnerability in Resilience III. Osmotic Aquatic
VII. Fragmented Cities VIII. Urban Stitching
I. URBAN FUTURE OF WATER CONFLICTS THE ALEXANDRIAN COAST
This is an ongoing work in partial obtainment of a PhD in Architecture and Construction, under the Architectural and Urban Composition branch of the Sapienza University of rome. It involves Studying the history of responding to water conflicts in Alexandria, with a light on water politics and how they changed with time, arriving at the new era with its specificities to the city (environmental urgencies, local governance) and its effects on informality and social equity. The result of the study would be an assessment of the efficiency of the local government›s interventions and plans, along with an exploration of the potential of some methods that are applied abroad in the mitigation of some of the risks involved. The urban study of water-based settlements cannot be pursued without the broader context of geological and ecological patterns. Alexandria is no exception, where the city’s evolution is connected to hydrological factors. The early inhabitants of Alexandria demonstrated an unprecedented genius in dealing with the fluctuation of the Nile and the sea and in handling groundwater. The movement from the traditionalistic gestation to the infrastructural order in Mohamed Ali’s era allowed the renaissance of Alexandria as a cosmopolitan regional capital. Today, water conflicts in Alexandria are marked by the rising demand for water sources and a changing climatic scenario.
Strategy Map for Alexandria
Urban History of Water and Urban Form Through the historical progression of water systems and urban development in Alexandria, it is possible to have strong connections between the two aspects. In this passage, the author believes that the reality of water for Alexandria, the promising port city, deeply affected its identity and form up until contemporary times. In its founding years, Alexandria was subjected to its first water conflict; while its position and the presence of the Pharos Island were optimal for a Greek port city, the fact that the Nile did not have a straight connection to Rhakotis made the region a disputed land. Here, water systems served as a pillar for Egyptian identity; one that Ptolemy I wanted to crystallize in his hybrid capital. Water management then contributed in the implementation of the Roman identity in the city, by the installation of Roman cisterns and baths. In fact, before the employment of cisterns, Alexandria’s water supply relied on underground aqueducts, a system that was later severely compromised by the 365 AD earthquake. From that point on, the development and population of the city heavily relied on the capacity of its cisterns. This state lasted until the Mohamed Ali rule.
Alexandria - Urban Evolution
Mohamed Ali’s vision for Alexandria demanded a set of interventions that later mostly turned out to be hydrological; it was known that the prosperity of the city relied on water supply and agriculture. This instigated the conception of the barrages project. On a local level, Alexandria’s new industrial and trade developments were concentrated around the Mahmoudiyeh Canal; which was dug and signified the renaissance of the city. New markets, factories and luxurious houses were situated around the Canal, which represented both a symbolical and economic driver to the new city. The rapid development of the city from the Khedivate times and on are proportionally accompanied by the sudden shrinking and exploitation of the Maryout lake; the new canalization system, the water retention system and the introduction of new agricultural lands in the outskirts of Alexandria made the city the sought-after internal migration hub it was in the past century. In an interview, Prof. Cristina Pallini boasted about the link between Alexandria and water, describing the Lake and the whole eco-system in hand as a physiology that connects history, geography, and urban form.
Top Left: Eco-system regeneration of El Mex Bottom Left: Searoad retrofitting Top Right: Alexandria - Risk Profile Bottom Left: Alexandria Governorrate Topography
ceasing, rural-to-urban migration from the Delta, the prominence of informality and the question of social equity, governmental negligence and withholding of information, and demographic/hierarchal specificities, all influence Alexandria’s abilities against hydrogenerated hazards. A study has led to an assessment of Alexandria’s urban community resilience against the repercussions of sea level rise and the accompanying hazards. The most vulnerable regions in Alexandria are Gharb, Gomrok and Wassat, with respective indexes of 0.363 ,0.294, and 0.379. Resilience rates decrease with a higher sea level rise scenario.
Urban Future of Water and Urban Form On a yearly basis, the Alexandrian beach gets eroded by about 20 cm due to wave motions in the spot. This is coupled by soil subsidence in the whole Nile Delta due to recent blockage of Nile sedimentation resulting from the Aswan 1960 dam. The rates of soil subsidence have been arriving to alarming rates in the last few years. This reality, joined together with factors of irrigation blockage caused by political issues between Ethiopia and Egypt, international and regional rates of sea level rise, and the recent recurrence of abnormal climatic events in the area, threaten to have extreme repercussions on the city and on the whole Delta. The fact the Nile Delta is situated predominantly on a low level, amplifies the effect of these factors. Scenarios include successive floods, the submergence and loss of some beach and urban zones, the loss of heritage sites due to salt water intrusion, and the loss of soil fertility in the Nile Delta; the main Egyptian agricultural area. This subsequently would pose major consequences on the Egyptian economy, and would inspire a major migration flow, threatening primarily the vast poorer population of the country, that lives predominantly in unprepared and unmaintained urban areas. Egypt’s current capacity to mitigate the risks projected by Alexandria’s hydro-hazards are limited, and are made more vulnerable by the multitude of dynamics that define Alexandria’s urban form: over-urbanization that is not
A resilient plan for Alexandria would incorporate a set of architectural and infrastructural interventions that would help attenuate the destruction magnitude of the hazards. Alexandria was built on functionality; urban elements were never out of place, and the founders of the city had the knowledge to fully profit from the area’s resources. Today, these teachings are lost to the point that they seem more developed that what we know, because they worked in harmony. An intervention today shouldn’t try to replicate the past elements, but to offer their metamorphosis in terms of richness and efficiency. The variety in land use and functions in this place makes it crucial to be studied deeply, and to explore the scenarios that would endanger the interdependent complex systems that prevail and interlock mostly in this area. Due to the extensive diversity of land use and the heavily hierarchal nature of the region, the main strategy to tackle these aspects would be to identify the main areas of intervention and action. A -3tier study to the selected area could be conducted: - Housing: including housing unit retrofitting and informal settlements, their vulnerability and potential for resiliency through emergency units and common spaces. - Infrastructure; onshore and offshore, flooding mitigation, and possible strategies. - Heritage preservation in the light of the upcoming risks. An intervention today shouldn’t try to replicate the historical gestational elements of the past, but to offer their metamorphosis in terms of richness and efficiency, based on contemporary needs and urgencies.
Diagnosis of issues The study and overlapping of the risk projection maps allow the diagnosis of the main problem areas that represent Alexandria’s biggest vulnerabilities to hydrological events in the designated areas. Natural ecosystems such as fisheries, salt basins, and wetlands are threatened to face grave repercussions due to the salt water intrusion that’s taking place in Alexandria’s underground water and soil. Pollution in the city is also on the rise, and with a decaying sewage system, any flooding event due to drainage overflow is threatening the health and lifestyle of every Alexandrian citizen. The multitude and diversity of these problems in a concentrated area reassure once again the need for a strategy to improve and prepare hydrologically.
Alexandria - Informal Building Typolologies
Emerging Strategy Following the study, the author categorized 3 main priority branches for dealing with the urban hydrological future of Alexandria: an incapable and decaying infrastructure, a housing crisis with a prominence in social segregation, and a heritage loss due to lack of maintenance and protection. 1 - Resilient Infrastructure aims to: •Improve mobility and safe transportation. •Preserve and safeguard ecosystems. •Enhance climate resilience through maintenance, design and planning. 2 - Equitable Housing aims to: •Provide safe housing options.
•Connect informality to the urban network. •Empower communities for a better crisis response. •Limit sprawl on unsafe and agricultural zones. 3 - Heritage Preservation aims to: •Recognize the value and importance of heritage sites for Alexandria’s collective memory. •Regenerate an interest in heritage by reconnecting it to the urban dynamic of the city. •Sustain heritage sites through climate resilience and structural protection. Each of these priority goals is applicable through a set of actions depending on location-sensitive risks and needs with further quantitative studies for every location.
II. VULNERABILITY IN RESILIENCE INFORMALITY & CLIMATE ADAPTATION
This work, published in the ICONA Conference of Rome, explores the inter-connected relationship between urban resiliency and social equity under the specific light of Egypt’s Alexandria. It sheds light on the informal scene of Alexandria, one that is often discarded and ignored in the dialogue of urban resiliency. Studies in resiliency often discard the specificity of sites and their hierarchal ramifications along with the historical experience of the local population. The idea is to redraw urban mitigation outlines and to include the affected population in the process of environmental containment. The paper thus studies local policies, the game changers and the benefiting parties, and the otherwise relocated or affected population in play in Alexandria, Egypt. The scope is to explore the potential of some sensible methods that would put into consideration the local capacities and vernacular experiences of the area’s population.
In order to acquire the needed data for the study, a field visit to Alexandria was conducted to gather photographs, maps, interviews and other resources directly connected to the issue. This phase permitted an assessment of the quality of the available information, and the understanding of Alexandria’s informal scene in an urban and social aspect. The author subsequently conducted an analogy based on recent satellite maps accompanied by a photographical archive to obtain an updated image of the informal situation in Alexandria.
The newly created maps, overlapped with maps of topography, and a quick reading of the climatic and environmental risks lurking over Alexandria in the light of the current demographical and architectural state of negligence regarding the issue, allow the presumption that informal settlements in Alexandria are the most vulnerable urban gatherings to these water induced risks.
El Mex Area, originally inhabited by industrial workers and fishermen, faces structural decay and gentrification due to environmental and economic factors
During the past century, Alexandria has witnessed a population boom from 1,037,462 in 1950 to 5,086,240 in 2018 on a surface of 2818 km2. This uncontrolled wave severely undermined the existing infrastructure of the city. Alexandria is today marked with an insufficient transportation and infrastructure system, a housing crisis, a decaying heritage, and a serious socio-urban dilemma. Informal areas in Egypt emerged illegally without general planning, and were therefore essentially deprived of infrastructural services like irrigation, drainage, and power supply. Informal settlements can mean anything in Egypt from inhabitants of graveyards, boats, staircase rooms, dumpsters and decaying buildings, to high-density urban neighbourhoods in deserted lands or in city centres with unplanned highrise buildings. The main problems facing these area can be numbered into main chapters: • Decaying/Insufficient infrastructure • Illegal/Unplanned constructions • Unstudied demolitions/additions to houses • Narrow streets with spatial abuse • Few services • Governmental Negligence • High crime and poverty rates • Segregation These problems, juxtaposed with the area’s topography and geological uniqueness, makes it very susceptible to major losses in the case of flooding. In the absence of services and maintenance, the results to such scenes are catastrophic. Alexandria is projected to be the most
damaged due to the repercussions of climate change in Africa. Many factors set it for major loss; its strategic location between 3 major water bodies, its extensive population, and its existence on predominantly low lands. This is confirmed by the now-repetitive flooding events targeting the city. The city is predicted to be partially submerged along with parts of the Nile Delta by 2070. The lack of services in Alexandria’s marginalized areas, the decaying and low quality of their infrastructure and streets, and the ever-rising density of these areas, accompanied with all the socio-economic problems specific to them, make these areas the most vulnerable to any of Alexandria’s 4 flood scenarios. The current direction to relocate the inhabitants of these areas into far and planned areas has proved to be insufficient due to several factors including the eradication of livelihoods, the lack of maintenance, and the absence of public transportation. This calls for better attention to these areas as main focus points when planning for urban adaptation, keeping in mind the issue of social equity and community participation. The produced maps showcase the fact that the informal scene in Alexandria is worsening, affecting all categories of informality in the city in varying degrees based on the respective factors and locations of each neighborhood. However, informal settlements are more susceptible to floods and are more vulnerable, and therefore require urgent improvements and attention. Learning from the experiences of the locals in these areas could help come out with a policy that is adequate without resorting to plans that would lead to the gentrification of the neighborhood. Most informal districts have a shared number of aspects: - Openings: relatively small; due to cultural and financial reasons. - Lighting: streets are usually pitch-black at night, sunlight is scarce.
Alexandria - Informal Morphologies
- Outline of buildings: often monotone in most typologies, except for historical neighborhoods. - Housing typologies differ depending on construction type and available space, and many houses seem to be mimicking the original organization of a farming house.
Alexandria - Informal Evolution and Vulnerability
III. OSMOTIC AQUATIC SAVING THE JORDANIAN CORAL ECOTONE
Preface
A collaborative work between international architectural and design students at the AAVSJO. This work at the Conference Methods
was also featured 9th International on Computational (ICCM9).
It looks at at the possible role of computational design ecologically in the protection of the aquatic Ecotone through the remodeling of human recreational activities.
The
Osmotic
Coral
Preservation
Park
The discussion of coral reefs has been repeatedly cast on an international level in the recent decade. Coral reefs maintain an integral importance environmentally and economically for bearing the richest ecosystems worldwide and for their role in several fields in human activity. However, due to continuously increasing climate issues along with many other damaging factors, phenomena of bleaching and coral mortality have been widespread globally. Events of skeletal destruction and loss of coral reefs are compromising the rich Ecotone and endangering the local species. This was confronted by relatively scarce attention and weak policies to fight against the menacing situation. This project suggests the idea of implementing the resilience factors of corals and their preserving environments in the production of artificial coral reefs, in a way that would take the idea to an advanced level and to expect a better outcome of these structures, instead of their current state as discarded non-degradable materials in the ocean. The use of computation is thus suggested and encouraged, due to its rising importance and convincing effects on an architectural platform. Computation will function here on many steps of the design, from conceptualization to implementation with the use of software that will generate possible solutions, tools that will simulate natural elements and therefore grade the spatial performances of the volumes and programs that will chronologically predict the aspect of the skeletal structure. All these steps will be showcased in a case study underwent by a group of design students and young professionals in 2016 that put computation into testing in order to come out with potential designs for the artificial reef of Al Aqaba, Jordan. Aquatic Ecotones coral reefs are the bearers of the richest ecosystems on earth. These structures that are situated between the shore and the ocean, are very important for the sustainability of our environment and life. Coral reef importance lies in the fact that it’s the natural Ecotone between land and sea; it thrives with very few nutrients, it protects the shore and the frontier cities from possible tsunamis and mega-waves, and forms a rich environment for developing businesses such as fishing and local craft-making. If not promptly healed, the bleached corals due to hazardous components never regain their health and color and face unavoidable mortality.
Resilience in Corals Despite the global devastation of the state of coral reefs, experts have noted a repetitive pattern of resilience in some zones that would otherwise be affected. A detailed and close study to the main influences behind the defiance to bleaching in these small localities helped gather a series of factors, intrinsic and extrinsic, that helped the corals thrive under compromising conditions. A study gathered the case studies and organized a set of circumstances in which corals are less affected by means of pollution and disease. This study could lead into a design that would revitalize the coral reefs. A structure could ecologically and sustainably reinforce the resilience of corals and help them fight against the elements. Just like detoxification architecture that is aiming to reintegrate nature with the urban landscape through effective biomorphic structure, this policy could be extended to sub-aquatic structure that would “renaturalize” the damaged areas and tackle the menacing damage done by tourists, climate change and other causes mentioned above. Establishing quite a design and form would require advanced technologies and techniques, for this matter is very fragile and trial and error are not an option in many cases. This promotes the need of new ways of design that would optimize the performance of the forms and generate a series of solutions that are in grade of testing before implementing them on site.
Personal Photography
Computational Regeneration of Corals The design required the employment of digital instruments including Autodesk 123 Catch for 3D scanning and shape extraction, Rhinoceros for modeling, along with grasshopper (parametric design plugin) and beehive, Autodesk Maya for simulation and selection, Processing for the chronological review of the chosen attributes and lastly Keyshot for virtual representation and rendering. The process involved the selection of a primary coral unit that is believed to be persistent and resilient in shape and texture in the studied area. The next step was to scan and regenerate the architectural structure of the species in order to create an archive of potential generic volumes and shapes for further study. it was then possible to excerpt the founding unit of the volume and to experiment with it, creating sets of fractal repetitions of the same nucleus. shielding the indigenous species from direct contact and extreme UV light, while visually exposing the tourists to the coral through an inter-system hub, one that would double the notion of the Ecotone it being from shore to sea, and from water to air. This required undergoing a simulation effort to understand the required volumetric composition following the wanted facilities and to include corals in the colder areas and the ones less exposed to solar radiations and warmer water. Following the generated new shape that was now equipped with openings, it was time to predict the growth patterns that would affect the general shape of the structure in a given time frame. The end result is a new coral reef park that acts as a regenerational ecosystem for coral while keeping protected areas away from harmful activities. Summary In this exploration, computation presents itself as a driver to experimental and unorthodox development that would detoxify and revitalize the fragile Ecotone. Computation methods have proven to have a potential role in poly-disciplinary practices as well such as architecture and environmental studies tackling global warming repercussions.
Interactive facilities at the Osmotic Coral Preservation Park
IV. PUERTO RICO: ECOTRANSFORMATION A NEW VISION FOR LEVITTOWN
The future of the local communities is linked to their capacity to re-adapt their way of life to the new conditions imposed by the climate and the economic situation. The proposal provides a sustainable collective urban action to achieve the systemic change that will make a demonstration project for the island.
This design proposal is a collaborative work produced at the Puerto Rico Re_Start2 workshop at the Polytechnic University of San Juan. It was later featured in the PRRS2 executive summary publication.
Personal Photography
The water link between Catano and Dorado, featuring the Levittown Eco-Hub
Location Along the Atlantic shore line an established settlement was selected: Levittown, very affected during the hurricane, to apply some selected strategies as the use of renewable energy, biogas production composting of waste, retrofitting of the existing residential typologies and more, providing a sustainable collective urban action to transform it into a resilient sustainable community. The belief is that the recycling and sustainable systems could become a community building, and a social experience, useful to achieve systemic change.
Levittown - Coastal retrofitting
The city was studied as part of a larger system that goes from Catano to Dorado. To encourage the «re_starting» of the island we had to consider the possible collaboration between municipalities.
The proposal encourages the «re_starting» of the island, proposing a vision that put together their strongest points such as: the waterfront of Catano, the water link between Catano and San Juan, the possibility to create a bike path that goes along the coastline becoming a way to improve the «slow tourism» and provide residents an alternative to automobiles, the enhancement of the conservation areas, to addresses weaknesses such as flood prone areas, and the proliferation of abandoned buildings caused by population migration. This new vision/master plan addresses weakness like fiood risk and the proliferation of abandoned buildings.
Design Process Providing a demonstration project for the island. Working on the neighborhood scale allows us to create a self-sufficient community in energy, waste and water, towards an integrated system through renewing a traditional urban model. At neighborhood scale we proposed the reactivation of abandoned lots, introducing in that spot for each eco-community a «living machine» that can guarantee the self-sustenance of the block, the increase the permeability of the soil to help water management and the buildings creating a hybrid fioodable ground fioor. Every residential unit could be equipped with photo voltaic panels and a system to collect and reuse the rainwater, integrated in the new design for a renovated residential typology. In order to do so, GIS analysis was employed in order to calculate the capacity and waste volume of each neighborhood. Two neighborhoods were selected as pilot areas; one coastal, A, and one Riverine, B. The interventions in the two neighborhoods depended on several factors including: number of inhabited houses, the existence of public
space, the volume of waste, the degree of flooding risk, the quality of houses, and the availability of venues for development. The idea was to create a holistic retrofitting plan for the existing housing typologies in the city, while providing a common space for each neighborhood for waste management and domestic agriculture. This common space, the eco-hub, would represent an emergency center for the community during any climatic event. Also, depending on the flood and sociological specificities of each neighborhood, flood retrofitting infrastructures were presented; such as increasing the permeability of streets, the addition of green areas to sidewalks, the reclamation of the river and the canals as public and safe areas that would function as nature-based flood drainage channels during an environmetal crisis. In addition, an agricultural suggestion was presented; an area to the west of the building was selected to be turned into a protected ecoagriculture zone, which doubles as a public community meeting point. This addition reinstalls sustainable livelihoods to the community while preserving the wetlands.
Guayanilla - Intervention Layers
The presented work is a synthesis to the works undergone during the happenings of the Puerto Rico Restart 3, studying the area of the Guayanilla Bay, South Puerto Rico. As a scope, the design gathers several lines of expertise in order to come up with a wholesome plan of the region, including fields of architecture, agriculture, landscape design, and others. Studies in infrastructure and history, identified the risks that hinder the urban life in it. The Guayanilla Bay has been prominent historically due to its proximity to exportation lanes and to its agricultural produce. The region has been witnessing a recurrence of climatic crises. This is due to the economic and environmental factors that weaken opportunities in the area. The area also is heavily contaminated. This situation called for a study of the pollution sources; notably poor or inexistent septic systems, industrial discharge and agricultural pollutants
GUAYANILLA ALTERNATIVE SCENARIOS FOR THE FUTURE
The quantitative project attempts to tackle these issues; it presents plans targeting issues of water contamination, wetland restoration, agricultural, industrial and economic regeneration, community preservation, and other proposals targeting an increased sense of resilience such as community relocation and emergency centers. Key features in the project: solar panels, communal housing, public spaces, commercial markets and bazaars encouraging local trade, reuse of abandoned industrial sites, and the expansion and revitalization of the agricultural aspect of the area. Through all this, community involvement is vital and crucial. Through local activism and learning from the history of the people, the design outcome would have a higher success rate. Learning the priorities of the local societies, their demands, wishes, emotional attachments, career and commute patterns, and their general preferences, would help the designer to get familiarized with the area and would provide him with significant tools to tackle issues of urban life and resilience. Vulnerable communities are to be implicated in the process, and their fragmented and now-established social bonds and neighborhoods are to be preserved and replicated in their potential new areas.
V. SOUTH AMERICAN RESILIENCE LESSONS FROM THE WEST
Water is an economic and social capital. It has always shaped policies, societies and urban form. Recently, interest in environmental events has resurfaced worldwide. International concern is growing in rapport to climate change and its fateful damage. Several countries are employing research and projects to attenuate the results of sea level rise, with the introduction of innovative architectural and urban tools to avoid flooding. Most of these interventions are prominent in developed countries, ones that are advanced in terms of environmental legalization and study. Following a thorough study of the Alexandrian individuality and followed by a 7 month research stay in Florida, it was possible to detect some common aspects connected to this topic and prevalent in three main locations: Alexandria as a base, and New Orleans and Miami as case studies. The mission was to introduce a basic map with guidelines inspired by the policies applied in the case studies. Scope The study aims to identify a set of similarities between the singularities of the selected locations to propose efficient tools, specific to the question of climate change risk mitigation coupled with the uniqueness of the place.
Wetland, South Gainesville, Florida Personal Phorography
An introductory exploration of the United States’ methods of adaptation and mitigation in the light of the recurrent climate phenomena, related to water bodies.
This research work was executed in the University of Florida, Center for Hydrogenerated Urbanism, under the supervision of Prof. Martha Kohen. Aside from the substantial expertise of international scholars connected to the center, this establishment is singularized by its unmatched archive depicting American knowledge in the aforementioned topic. Familiarization with both the American and Egyptian experiences allowed the extraction of a number of shared aspects connected to climate resiliency and architecture. This subsequently could allow an elaborate analogy that would be more efficient in the case of Alexandria, by picking certain projects specific to a chosen singularity in America.
Miami Miami ranks first internationally in terms of exposed assets to the effects of sea level rise and inland flooding, with %93 of its buildings at high risk areas. It also ranks fourth in terms of exposed population, with most of its population concentrated in proximity to the wide coastline. Environmentally speaking, Miami is projected to face hydrological hazards including: - Sea level rise and water intrusion: with an average elevation of 1.8 meters, facing a sea level rise projection of 0.9 to 1.5 meters by 2100. - Heavy coastal storms and increased flooding: while rainfall rates are expected to decrease for Miami in the future, with less coastal storms, it is however projected that the storms that will occur will be heavier in magnitude and damage rate. - Coastal erosion: increased erosion due to sea level rise and heavier storms will undoubtedly expose the waterfront and eradicate the beach tourism Miami is famous for. - Decreased precipitation and a water supply crisis. Current Strategy Miami’s resilience strategy only emerged in spring 2019. The city’s strategy is currently at the implementation phase.
Along with environmental hazards, local factors such as Miami’s aging infrastructure, its exposed heritage and the housing crisis due to a decreased affordability in the city make matters worse for the people. The strategy, titled Resilient305 identified 3 goal areas of actions dedicated to mitigating crises from different environmental hazards, with stresses on erosion, storms, infrastructure and flooding: Places, People and Pathways. 1 - Places a.Enhance natural systems: i. Protecting, preserving and restoring the Biscayne Bay, a key location for water resources. ii. Building a reef ecosystem, by implementing artificial reefs as natural living defensive structures against erosion, and by regenerating and protecting existing reef systems. iii. Bolstering beaches and reinforcing them with nourishment, vegetation and natural systems. iv. Expanding natural infrastructures, such as rivers, canals, wetlands. v. Enacting resilience in parks and public places by incorporating green space, native species of plants, water retention units, water treatment infrastructure, and flood-safe pedestrian pathways. b.Safeguard urban systems i. Reducing Back Bay flooding between the cities of Miami Beach and Miami. ii. Maximizing opportunity zones for investment throughout the Miami-Dade region. c. Create mobility options i. Increasing mobility hubs ii. Developing an improved bus network Energy efficiency, promoting renewable energy d. Enhance housing through resilient public housing projects 2 - People: Miami has an average density of 217’5 person/km2. a. Improving community response to climate events i. Increase neighborhood response quality ii. Prepare properties and housing units iii. Developing resilience hubs b. Spreading awareness on all levels of society 3 - Pathways a. Pre-planning recovery
VI. READING ROMAN MORPHOLOGY A LINK BETWEEN THE PAST AND THE FUTURE
This work is a reflection on the formative process for the urban roman tissue located on the northern side of the Campo Marzio zone. It suggests a reconstruction of the strategic system of the urban tissue while concentrating mainly on the rules of the anthropic behaviors that contributed in the development of the city and that could suggest also presently, some tactical lines for the contemporary project in the historical city. In the study presented here, the built form is examined through the morphological analysis, the expeditious reading of the cadastral particles and the study of the mural map. The first, based on the current work, allowed to recognize the previous phases of the present urban form while the second, confronting the mural map and the particular division, permitted the reading of the older mural structures that are actually concealed in the confusion of the actual cadastral makeup and that were used as a foundation for the more recent elevations. This work was featured as a research paper in the ISUF Conference in Bari, Italy.
Rome - Urban Nodes of via Giulia
Rome - Urban Evolution of via Giulia
Recognizing and reading the urban landscape allows the reconstruction of the phases belonging to the urban happenings that, both diachronically and synchronously, have contributed into the formation of the urban fabric. The study of the built volumes, observable through the cadastral cartography, permits the direct recognition of the traces that overlap the previous buildings. These building diaphoras, imposed by a project, emerge by prescribing new orientations, dimensions, axes and nodes.
Following the extensive study of the urban tissues in the Via Giulia area, the collaborators managed to form a list of criteria for the design process of the Virgilio School Restoration. It was concluded that the location is on an important urban cross and could form a significant node in the area. Taking this into consideration, the requalification of the school should hold in consideration this potential role and put it into play. In the case of an extension to the designated premises, the design’s mission would be to both make up for the old building’s deficiencies
and to regard the historical tissue with sensibility. The study included the identification of the main axes of the territory and how the main nodes and landmarks helped to shape and define the lines and main streets we have today. This understanding allows to conclude the main guidelines for the proposal. The project is ought to: respect the archeological boundaries of the site and plan away from them, creating a primary outline for the building.
Roma - Pertinance axes of via Giulia
This analogy shows the capacity of morphological analysis in the design field. Urban fabric reading, though often conserved to academic purposes, may and arguably should be an integral part of the design process; for it gives insight on the specificity of the place and suggests the right way to manipulate it with a non-damaging outcome. As exhibited in this case, a reading to the historical phases allowed a clear morphological understanding. This importantly helped the shaping of a new and logical set of criteria for the possible project; such as main axes, and unit locations. Therefore, urban morphology can rise from the mere role of academia, and rather be reintroduced as one of the important tools for architectural design.
VII. FRAGMENTED CITIES SUB-COMMUNITIES IN BEIRUT & ROME
This work, presented as a published paper in the ISUF conference in Bari, Italy, attempts to reread the ethnic agglomerations that tend to form at the level of international cities due to the mass migration of a certain group of people from a rather homogeneous background. These agglomerations, known as ethnic neighborhoods, are zones specified by the dominance of a certain foreigner population which affects the general dynamic of the city culturally and financially. The zones could be the result of a discriminatory urban policy, the collective financial capacity of the residents, or personal preference. The document studies three cases of sub-communities in three different locations, in order to differentiate the characteristics of the neighborhood and to establish a set of common ones, while still acknowledging the specificity of each and every culture, and how that affects the resulting space. Through this review, the case studies will shed light on the main problems and social stigma that challenge the healthy co-existence of the local culture and the emerging one. Through the methodological reading of these locations, a general understanding of the main challenges against sub-community integration will be put forward, in hopes of extracting some main guidelines for the effective and healthy integration process that should be instilled. This process could be a collective effort pursuit by local urban authorities, civic game-changers, social public figures, and so on. This paper reviews the Bourj Hammoud zone in Beirut, Lebanon, the main neighborhood for the Armenian community. A comparison is made to the Ain El Helwi Palestinian camp in Sidon, which is an inaccessible enclave for non-Palestinians. In Rome, the Esquilino neighborhood sparks attention for being the “Chinatown” of the city.
Lebanon has been historically marked as a base point for travel and trade, with its location on the eastern Mediterranean coast. Up from the last century until this date, Lebanon has been subjected to endless immigration waves from and to the national territory. The main minorities existing in Lebanon today are the Armenian and the Palestinian communities, with now the vast flow of also Syrian immigrants due to the ongoing war. The issue of these two minorities is intriguing in its own respect; Palestinians, being relatively close to the Lebanese population in aspects of culture, heritage and language, have failed to integrate with the community and are presently heavily segregated in walled and fenced enclaves almost inaccessible by the Lebanese. This failure in the integration is influenced by the local policy of the Lebanese government that rejected the naturalization of Palestinians and prohibited them from the acquisition of property which made it impossible for the Palestinian generations to escape from the ethnic enclave and heavily challenged their integration into the Lebanese realm. This is sparked by the ongoing perception of Palestinians as transitional people who will eventually leave the Lebanese territory when the state of Palestine is redeemed. Paradoxally, the Armenian minority has successfully integrated with the Lebanese life. At their arrival, Armenians occupied camps in the north coast of Beirut and adopted an urban transitional identity. However, following the French mandate in Lebanon, the Armenians gained a wide support from the Catholic Church and were assigned a territory in Beirut to build and settle in. Today, Bourj Hammoud is the base point for the Armenian existence in Lebanon, even though many of them left the area around the second generation and dispersed in the surrounding zones and towns. Another aspect of governmental acceptance is the naturalization of Armenians and giving them the Lebanese nationality soon after the Lebanese independence and the acknowledgment of their advocacy through giving them 2 minority parliament seats.
The Armenians built their zone in an urban system that matched the one that existed in towns Armenia; they even named the streets after Armenian towns and copied their architectural styles in houses, schools and churches. However, Armenians regarded the main axes of Beirut into consideration and offered continuation to them, which extended the arteries of the city towards the Armenian neighborhood. This is evident from a simple review of the sky images of Bourj Hammoud that show a neighborhood with smaller scale houses, but still with continuous axes towards the city. Moving towards the northern coast of the Mediterranean, is Italy with its eternal city Rome. Esquilino, in latin ex-quilinus which means foreigners or newcomers, started off in 1974 as a neighborhood for government employees resettling in Rome and coming essentially from north Italy. Later, it was inhabited by workers coming from poorer Italian regions in the center and the south. Today, Esquilino’s population is marked by a high percentage of foreign nationals with the Chinese ruling the general image. Italians primarily have a very negative conception of the area, deeming it unsafe, illegible, not Italian and simply peripheral and excluded. Foreign residents in Esquilino however complain about the lack of public services and governmental care, the absence of law-enforcement, the marginalization and dismissal of their demands and needs and so on. Studying potential interventions in the Esquilino zone would require reviewing local integration policies in Italy. This allows the evocation of a series of recommendations for Rome. For instance, the commune is ought to reestablish its grip on Esquilino; spreading security officers around the clock, firmly overlooking the general behavior of the neighborhood. Also, the government should apply some serious refinement works to the area. Limiting the extent of hotels and hostels in Esquilino would be favorable in terms of requalification of the residential aspect of the zone, and would limit drug dealing and prostitution. Encouraging individual advocacy rather than organizational ones, increasing the participatory aspect of the area would help loosen the secluded attitude the Chinese express in the area. Also, reconsidering the plan of Piazza Vittorio Emanuele would be helpful by redefining the main axes of the garden and by eliminating its
Bourj Hammoud represented as its nuclear neighborhood in the general context of urban Beiurt. Armenia, Arax and other Armeniannamed streets are today deeply entwined in .the fabric of the city
blind zones. The park should also serve more social layers by maintaining an effective zoning that would serve pet owners, parents, elderly people, and youth. Additionally, any requalification for the existing buildings or any new project should take into consideration the inter-cultural aspect of the inhabitants. As for the market, the government should adopt the emerging merchandise as a potential for a creative and new wing of economy in the Roman realm. A more extreme suggestion would be to move the faculty of oriental studies away from Esquilino or even establishing another department in the main campus in order to separate the youth from their comfort zone and to encourage them to interact with the local wider community. In order for any of these suggestions to work, all the communities in play should first adopt a risk-taking policy in aims of better integration and inclusion.
VIII. URBAN STITCHING
POST-QUARRY REHABILITATION This project is a mending attempt to the urban fracture present at the periphery of the Biakout town and overlooking the main Matn highway. Urban sprawl issues were obvious in the area and specifically at the chosen site. the project involves post-industrial parks and post-quarry reclamation; an issue neglected and disregarded on the national platform.
Biakout is a rapidly developing town to the north of Beirut and on the north frontier of Nahr El Mot. Today, Biakout forms an attractive destination for those who are looking for settlement near Beirut while still preserving a rural ambiance.
It is an exploration of the opportunity of bringing together multiple layers of individuals, boosting the region’s economy and giving meaning and value to the outrageous vista of a quarry.
Urban sprawl in Biakout has been slow and continuous until the year 1998; when the main highway came to life and regulations to stop the quarries started to take place. Biakout became adjacent to an important artery of the area.
Functionally, the proposed building is an urban complex, stitching the urban gap the quarry and the highway created, while offering recreational and civic facilities to the local and regional communities.
This created an urban problem; the natural flow of development was abruptly cut off by a highway and a cliff area. An urban fracture can be identified through the approach to the town.
This document is an excerpt from the thesis submitted in fulfillment the degree of Master in Architecture, the Lebanese University. Original: Stitching Peri-Urban Realms Through Qarry Rehabilitation: The Case of Nahr El Mot.
Urbanization became denser on the edge of the cliff of the quarry, while the lands near the highway couldn’t have been invested. Excessive urbanization, without treatment to the now-eroding cliffs, resulted in a series of building collapse events in the past decade. A geological and urban intervention was to be introduced.
Biakout - Structural Diagram
The site is located in the Nahr El Mot area to the south of Biakout, in the industrial zone. It belongs to a small chain of limestone outcrops with a regional maximum elevation of 100m, with a very steep topography. The town witnesses issues of social segregation between its Muslim and Christian communities. It also faces challenges with transportation, given the inaccessibilty of its inhabitants to the main highway. Environmentally speaking, the site struggles with sediment loss and erosion. The southern area of the town is deemed as useless and hazardous. In terms of public facilities, Biakout and the Metn region lack in recreational space; gyms, libraries, parks, cafes and restaurants, event halls, etc. are needed. The proximity to Beirut gives the site a great potential of investment; the commercial nature of the nearby coastal highway influenced the
The main analogy of the design process focused on the concepts of postindustrial reclamation and the optimization of urban interstices. The idea behind the design was to reintroduce the natural greenary and shape to the missing mountrain while offering a space for economic development.
decision of implementing a hybrid program at the chosen location. The program features an extreme sports hub to the eastern side of the project. the western side features a library, a events venue, a wellness center, a gym, and an elevator to the main neighborhood of the town that represents the reclaimed link between the town and its urban surroundings. The architectural style of the building features a set of steel patterns. The main frame of the complex is imbedded into the cliff and has the function of sustaining and preserving the structural integrity of its soil. The envisaged concept harmonized with the issue of urban fracture, giving a general shape of transmission through volume scales, patterns of transition from one function to another, and the introduction of buffer pitched gardens to contain the noise parameters of every role.
ayamh@live.com + 39 327 383 4185
ayamh@live.com + 39 327 383 4185