Transient Freedom We cannot forget who we are Graduate of 2020
Index
General Adress...............From Tripoli, Lebanon Phone................+961 71996296 E-mail................ issamfnw@gmail.com
Projects 1
I am
Not an outlaw, but a free man. A venturous architect in love with nature and its philosophy. - ‘Tell me how he died’ -’ I will tell you, how he lived...’ ~the last samurai
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Education • Prim & Mid School (2002 - 2011) E.N.G.O, Tripoli, Lebanon • Baccalaureate in General Science (2011 - 2014) SSCC High school, Tripoli, Lebanon • Bachelors in Architecture (2015 - 2020) AZM University, Tripoli, Lebanon
Interests • • • • •
Creative Design Philosophy & Poems Astronomy & Biology Adventure Martial Arts
Scorrior
Into The Forest
Meta Succe
3 amorphic essor
Experience Abstract Reality
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Internship at Solidere, Beirut, 2018 (2 months, Full time) Internship at Karim Nader Studio, Beirut, 2019 (2 months, Full time)
Skills
Lurking 6 Essence Sixth Sense 7 8
• • • • • • • • •
Transient Freedom
Competitions 9
Art
Languages • • • • •
Arabic English French Spanish German
Sketchup Photoshop Rhinoceros Lumion AutoCAD Illustrator Grasshopper Revit InDes ign
Awards • • • • • •
1st place Diploma of FABRIANO Drawing Competition, 2006 Blue Belt in Karate, 2010 Completion of Workshop ‘Culturally-led regeneration of Tripoli’s Historic City’ Level 4 in Aikido (brown belt/ HAKAMA), 2019 4th place in TBIC (Theemar Business Idea Competition), 2019 1st place in Hult Prize Azm University, 2020/01
Philosophy
For me, everything we hear is an opinion not a fact, and everything we see is a perspective not the truth. I’m not an outlaw, but I always try to get out of the conventional and break getting deep into everything I do. I admire reasoned complexity, not just to complicate things for fun. Everything I do must have a concept or else it would be ornamentation. I alw accept fixed rules just because they have been fixed a long time ago: I need a better excuse. I’m not trying to show off, I just thrive towards Innovation and creativity.
k limits that people put to themselves because of their fear of change. I’m not afraid of experiencing new things because for me, Architecture is Innovation. I’m passionate about ways try to make complex and deep concepts because I believe Architecture is mysterious by definition. I respect many things but when it comes to designing something, I don’t
1- Architectural Projects I believe that the materialistic age glorified interest and vilified love. People became selfish, and architecture their cage of selfishness shaping an incredibly regulated world and a loss of value in buildings. Architecture must break these laws and learn how to be a framework for life: ambiguous, dynamic, and open to change, so that people can create their own social situations, always transforming, interpreting, and embracing the impermanence of things and their changing perceptions. In other words, Alive. All of that can be found in nature. And that’s why we like it: because we’re both alive.
Scorrior
First year, first semester Mission: Make a mask from my face
Front view result Front view process
Discovering the hidden shape in my face by analysing its geometry, extracting its hidden shape, then transforming it into a 3D mask
Profile view process Profile view result
Scorpion
Front and profile views combined
Warrior
Into The Forest Second year, first semester Mission: Design my dream house
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I was told to find my current house’s problems then, mixing them with my own and my family’s dreams, design a new house which solves these problems and makes our dreams come true.
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My dreams Feel nature in my room Have an adventurous house Have a flexible house Have a basement in my room Have a security system
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4
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Their dreams Feel nature at home Have a transparent room Have an open kitchen Have a room for movies Have a two floors room Have a library
• The house’s geometry so people feel like wal geting lost, taking shor multiple roads. • Different walls and co create a mysterious ex walking in the house. • Short columns to sit on rocks in the middle of • High ones are to feel o trees and nature • The house has a lot of walls so people feel lik in-between trees • Floor leveling is to feel spirit of a forest
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1
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1. En 2. My 3. Par 4. We 5. Tra 6. Sis 7. Un 8. Kit 9. Th 10. Liv 11. Ba 12. Up
is very chaotic lking in a forest, rtcuts and
olumns’ heights xperience when
n like sitting on a forest overwhelmed by
gaps between its ke seeing glimpses
l the adventurous
ntrance y bedroom rents’ bedroom elcoming Path aining room sters’ bedroom nderground cinema tchen hinking room ving room alcony pper floor Library
My parents’ room They sometimes like to be separated so a wall moves to create a second door thus the room is divided but united in common zones
My bedroom •
An organized maze that makes me feel that I live in a forest.
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When you have two rooms in one space lightly separated, you feel like doing two things at once without being confused.
Entrance & Main path • • • •
Glimpses to other rooms Different walls’ levels Sitting areas and tiny paths Network of paths to choose between
Living room& Kitchen • Open to each other’s to feel a forest’s freedom • Like sitting around fire and having food near you • Skylights let light inside and creates random shadows My sisters’ room They need two separated spaces but also want a common space to meet.
Metamorphic Successor
Fourth year, first semester Mission: intervene in an abandoned place: Tripoli’s train station What if I tell you that all the dead are alive? We just can’t see them.. They’re here, around us, Everywhere. Don’t be afraid, It is natural to become..
The site is unstable: Some areas are completely ruined, others partially ruined, and few are in a good condition Nature is not invading. There’s an experiment going on. Nature is merging with the site to give something new. I want to save it, but how?
I liked how this mixture of atoms is happening.. I couldn’t believe that such beauty was abandoned, forgetting what it was...
While growing, creatures keep decaying then, they do not die, but transform into atoms of nature The site was formed from nature, and will go back to be transformed to a new atomic form. It is nature taking its cycle Okay, but what to do? It is better not to intervene at all and let the natural cycle work until the site fully decays then transforms, but it is best to intervene with a purpose of creating architecture that preserves the memory of the current site after it transforms
But why?
The importance of the site is its transformation itself into an unintentional monument due to the passage of time and natural cycle. That is why it shouldn’t be demolished nor renovated, but imprinted
I will create an architecture that plays the role of what nature is doing now.. An Architecture that imprints what remains of buildings from walls, slabs, and structure while imitating nature
This intervention imitates nature by weaving into elements and forming new spacesnew spaces inside
After Intervening structures embrace the natural growth of buildings and weave into their decayed parts (holes), then hold a mesh that imprints their remains ‘It is impossible to restore anything that has ever been great or beautiful in architecture. Another spirit may be given by another time, and it is then a new building’ -John Ruskin
Before Intervening
After Decades
The building has now completely transformed and the structure which imprinted it represents its natural growth and memory that will live after it. This structure holds itself independent of the existing buildings !
S A t
Steel bars crawl on existing surfaces then extend to the ground to get fixed. After, a wire mesh is laid on top of them to imprint the existing building (Steel bars can go through the mesh if needed).
People are protected by a construction cloth suspended by cables while exploring the hangars
Site Section showing how the imprinting respects nature and grows whith it
This is another building where the ruined slabs were taken as an inspiration and the in-between voids are where nature has overgrown
Abstract Reality
Site
Fourth year, first semester Mission: build a mosque in front of a sea I think I have a problem..The moment I entered the site, I got lost. I could still see the city, but couldn’t feel it. The sea is weird, It has a relaxing noise, Its movement can’t be felt... I just can’t be annoyed..
Absorption It’s not noise son: It’s the sea breathing It has a hidden rhythm If you try to focus, you get absorbed It is making you beautifully drugged
Abstraction This is a high sensual space Our senses become abstract Our presence no longer exists The site itself doesn’t exist The map is lying Earth is lying We are being fooled !
What I felt was real but not real: An abstract rea It origins from outside but was felt on earth. My architecture will be felt more than seen: An abstract architecture
Humanity Our problem is that we treat everything the same. But some things are highly spiritual and can’t be treated as a “thing”. Those are hidden in vessels, that’s why we see them as things. But in order to treat them best, we must uncover them
A feeling that the s doesn’t exist due to sea’s absorption po
Plan
ality
site o the ower
High Sensual Space
Separated from context
Approach
The physical world is usually hollowed boxes, but what I want to do is to gradually fragment this physicality of the physical world till it vanishes and link to a part of the abstract world which is the sea. as people walk into the site, Boxes fragment and become planes
Then, planes fragment into lines These lines are steel structures that extend the previous planes into lines which form the main structure of new spaces that come after like the ablution space where they form the water givers and the whole structure of the mosque which we will see next Trees sometimes come in-between these structures where they seem a part of them
Section in the Library Section in the library showing how lines form its structure and stating the beginning of another fragmentation
Site Axo Site Plan
Axonometric Section in the Mosque
Then, lines fragment into points Mosque axo showing how lines coming from outside form its columns.
Then, points fragment into nothing The project ends in the mosques’ courtyard: where even points, which are the columns, vanish till they become nothing, facing humbly the emptiness and purityof the sea
Mosque Plan Mosque plan showing how points form its structure which then vanish completely
The mosque is not an object: It’s a metaphysical link with heaven
Weak link with earth • Flying slab • Flying roof • Never ending columns
Lurking Essence
Fourth year, second semester Mission: build an art school in Tripoli, Lebanon The river was an important element in the past that crawled in and between the houses without stopping and connected the neighborhoods until one day it flooded. The people cut its branches, straightened it, and made it a divider between lands instead of solving its problem
History
‘ It is impossible to restore anything that has ever been great or beautiful in architecture…Another spirit may be given by another time, and it is then a new building; but the spirit of the dead workman cannot be summoned up, and commanded to direct other hands, and other thoughts.’ “The seven lamps of Architecture”, John Ruskin
So how to revive the past without reviving it? How to make it run, when it forgot how to move?
Concept
In addition to bringing the spirit of the river, the project plays the role of the intermediate space as it had been always there there by linking both souks together and belonging to the existing fabric. The river’s trace was followed to create the spaces too
Carving through a mass to recreate the abstract spirit of the river while respecting the context from the outside but surprising the visitors from the inside by this hidden spirit.
Circulation
The building seems as bumps rising from the ground and carved by the river. These setbacks strengthen the idea of fluidity freedom by creating open spaces and courtyards The river keeps flowing vertically to create the circulation of the building with courtyards that seem formed by the river
Ground floor
Massing
First floor
First floor
Second floor
Second floor
A mysterious being seems floating on top of the city: It’s the building’s roof that creates curiosity for people to enter the project
Ground floor
Section AA
Section BB
Second floor
The river’s exhibitions rep river in a present time an with its dynamism and
On the outside, the project an illusion of
presents the dynamic feeling of the nd gives people a sense of the past d the introduction of water in it.
t respects its surrounding and gives being similar to them.
Side Section
The facade is heavy where the urban surrounding is but keeps dematerialising while orbiting towards the river until it becomes totally transparent Front Section
But as you notice, there’s something fishy on its top: the roof creates curiosity and gives a glimpse of what is inside without revealing itself
This is the main entrance to the project and the link to the river’s exhibitions Double Section
Inner space expressing this fluidity and freedom of spaces formed by the living spirit of the old river
Transient Freedom
Final Year Project Mission: A new way of life by an unfinished architecture which nature finishes Finished/ Dead Being Why is Architecture fixed and finished when our life changes and is unfinished? Why should we live in dead cages that don’t evolve with us? ‘The materialistic age glorified interest and vilified love.’ People became selfish and architecture their cage of selfishness. We should live spaces, not live in spaces. Architecture must be a framework for life: ambiguous, dynamic, and open to change: Unfinished A Fake Order This space is not beautiful and has a fake order
A Natural Order
Like this image of war: There’s a natural order in i It’s composed of human elements which we can c continuity…) and secret elements which only natu chaos & Imperfection).
The boundaries of spaces must be dissolved within the world to let us focus on the unfinished process of being. That’s to live a changing spatial experience but never perceive the space as a whole. This lets architecture evolve with us.
it making it unfinished. create (layers, experience, ure can create (ordered
Yesterday, Ghandour factory was a finished object of rigid boundaries. When it was abandoned, nature started transforming it to something unfinished. That’s a chance to work with nature in transforming the rest.
Also, dissolving in the world is to think of earth as a single mosaic of living and non-living organisms (Nature & Architecture). To live together and with nature as one. So the old independent factory which sits in 3 different land types will become a communal factory of work and living merging all types : A new way of life. However, life is unpredictable: so spaces must change with time and we must not be able to predict their future.
An Unfinished Nature left traces of its unfinished transformation as we see in the pictures. The southern part is the affected one, and will be worked on while the rest will be left till its time comes when nature reaches it. The factory is surrounded by a food refrigerator and abandoned buildings.
Unfinished Finishing of an Unfinished So first, I’m finishing what is unfinished. Detected traces are filled as if I’m nature, by weaving into the existing grid with its same dimensions to create an unfinished intervention that becomes a part of the old. And because humans can’t create the secret elements, I will create human elements that helps nature’s creation of secret elements. And when both are merged, they create a natural order.
A bond between nature and architecture creates space. The ground floor is for people to meet and work, while upper floor’s footprint is minimized for settlement. In that way a separated living where we only consume the communal space and nature, becomes a communal platform where we live together and are responsible about both our community and nature. That creates urban spaces where common interests meet (ex: workspaces & farming), and industries where common interests are shared (ex: market, exhibition). Homes get an exact area to what humans need. So today, a few families came to settle and started planting trees.
Time
And with time, the settlement grows in parallel with nature by completing the unfinished. Existing walls and openings become part of the intervention. The section shows how nature grows with architecture.
5 to 10 Years Later‌ The settlement then grows vertically with nature while also completing the existing spatially. Nature doesn’t care about trusses, but will also fill them and create spaces within.
Trusses become windows for homes, then the filling breaks the roof as if nature itself did to open up views and let the sun inside.
No Beginning, Nor End: A Loop of Space and Time Entanglement But time is unpredictable: People can stay, swap apartments, or leave to another community while others join, which breaks the previous linearity of development with time into an unpredictable cycle. It could take 5, 10, 20, 30, or even forever for the space to reach its maximum growth, which is exactly what life is: Unknown and Unfinished.
Bridges are inserted in empty spaces for settlers to keep circulating. A lonely family also links to the community while waiting for new settlers, who will have to deal with wilder trees, a new challenge.
Tomorrow´s Circulation So, tomorrow’s circulation and the position of stairs, ramps, and elevators are positioned according to the position of the unfinished traces, so it’s not random.
So, tomorrow’s circulation and the position of stairs, ramps, and elevators are positioned according to the position of the unfinished traces, so it’s not random.
Unfinished Enveloppe An unfinished envelope is added to the to the equation to free residents from fixed boundaries: settlers choose their half-home from different layout options. The architect gives them a fixed bathing and sleeping boundaries, then with his coordination, they can change other boundaries position and level of openness that always changes with needs, seasons, and daytime. Double Skin And I’m using the unfinished existing skin as a shelter for the intervention, which allowed the use of lighter structures and materials within it
Ground Floor Here we find urban spaces. They can be anything: crafting, weaving, This is the spirit healthcare, etc...of the space. Boundaries change according to needs, and nature’s secret elements start dissolving the boundaries, as we can see in the small image.
Here we can see how the new completes and old and how people life together.
d overlaps the
Evolving With Nature as One in a Boundaryless Space We’re Living the space but cannot perceive it as a whole, like life.
First Floor On the first floor, people build their homes
We’re Living the space but cannot perceive it as a whole, like life.
An image of how the secret elements of nature dissolve the human elements to create the beginning of a natural order.
Erasing Of Symbolism: Nature is Free trusses are part of the space with nature reaching everywhere.
Second Floor They use trusses as part of them. The whole space is layered with nature and will dissolve more with the secret elements
And how trusses are part of the space with nature reaching everywhere.
Communal Spirit, With the Beginning of the Natural Order Section of the whole project
Communal Spirit, With the Beginning of the Natural Order
the secret elements of nature dissolve the human elements to create a natural order.
3D Section of the whole project
The intervention Finishes the old, and Nature Finishes the Intervention But yet, everything could change with time.
But yet, everything could change with time.
Shape Shifter
Fourth year, first semester Mission: Create a public space for a neighborhood A poor neighborhood had only a small area to build a public space. I wanted to give them the maximum leisure possible out of it, so I came up with an idea of a transformable space which changes and transforms to allow multiple activities depending on the neighborhood’s needs. A main structure moves and alters to allow this transformation. It could be a park, festival, theater, market, arena, etc.. It changes with needs and desires, and could become anything.
Park 1
Movie Theater
Market
Festival
Arena
Turning Tables (Venice Biennale, 2020) Fifth year, first semester Mission: Represent the Liminal space of Lebanon
The theme of this year was ‘How will we live together’ that represents how do we live together in lebanon. It is represented in 3 spaces: the first space is the small table which represents the majority of the people and how friendly sociable they are. The big table represents the politicians and how they work on their own interests without us seeing them acting as if they’re one of us, like the big chair that seems as sitting with the other ones but in fact is not. The paper which represents corruption and which is hardly seen from below. The third space is the one which is seen from far away which represents the vision of foreigners that understand this reality.
Rhinoceros Designing with Rhino
Designing an organic intervention for a historical rigid building with all its detailed complex plans and sections taken from rhino to scale
Imagining a new type of house that breaks the conventional house’s architecture
Designing a viking boat that contains a meuseum
Grasshopper
Designing with Grasshopper
Designing a tensile structure using Kangaroo on grasshopper
Designing a random structure that changes with grasshopper’s parameters
Designing an origami structure using Kangaroo on grasshopper
Revit
Architectural workshop
Designing an architecture workshop and lab using revit and analysing its environmental aspects to take design decisions.
Physical Modeling Trying to express an abandoned train station at Tripoli by altering clean and pure materials to decaying ones in order to express this old age spirit.
Abandoned Train Station
Noisy Sound
Laser Trap
Metamorphic Successor Model
Merging chinese culture and Charles Makintosh’s philosophies
Sketching
Sketching an Ionic column
Sketching ‘Ronchamp’, Le Corbusier
Expressing
Explaining Deconstructivism in a panel made in a deconstructive way
I hope that you enjoyed my work, and I promise myself that I’ll keep thriving towards creativity, and believing that anyone can change the world by believing that nothing is impossible