DISCURSIVE FORMATIONS

DISCURSIVE FORMATIONS is a Beirut-based critical think tank and research platform operating in the realms of spatial analysis and intervention of the built and unbuilt environment. Our work addresses issues of spatial culture, development politics, urban governance, spatial (un)justice, social structures, urbanization, landscape transformations, (un)sustainability, (un)public space, and formal aesthetics in areas of regional and urban planning, urban design and architecture, and landscape planning and design. Our work draws on Beirut’s complex and multi-faceted contemporary urban scene. We are culturally-critical, socially-oriented, and ecologically-aware in discourse and undertaking, and we adopt multidisciplinary approaches and methods in research. DISCURSIVE FORMATIONS took off in November 2008 with the research project "At the Edge of the City" on Beirut’s park and public space. The platform is established and coordinated by urban planner, writer, and social advocate Fadi Shayya.