3 - Y5 - Industry & Site - Photography

FIELDWORK

LOCAL MANUFACTURERS & EXSISTING SITES

/PHOTOBOOK

TABLE OF CONTENTS

RAFA stone company is located in the north of Lebanon, on the coastal strip. It was once a quarry for the excavation of limestone and has now turned into a stone cutting factory with a large yard of full latent stone blocks. Today, it is completely deserted as a result of the current economic situation.

RAFA Stone company - Limestone Extraction

The Factory is divided into two areas by a retaining wall made of limestone blocks. On the top level the stone stock is stored, and on the lower level lie the cutting facilities and the storage of smalled processed slabs: It consists of two large steel warehouses and two cranes which are the backbone of the place, used to move the blocks throughout the site.

RAFA Stone company - Limestone Extraction

The cutting process creates lots of waste which is then thrown or re purposed.

TADROS & FILS - MARBLES AND LIMESTONE

KFARSHIMA - MT. LEBANON

Tadros & Fils is a local artisanal stone factory located in Kfarshima on mount lebanon. It recieves its stone by truck from various quarries in the country. With very little automation the factory is equiped with a gang saw that can cut a large stone block of 1.5mx1.5x2m bloxk into thin 3cm slabs.

The Factory also has various sizes of unidirectional circular cutting baldes, with a 360 degrees rotating and pivoting bed, allowing for more possibility for single axis cuttting.

All company stone waste is simply thrown outside on the side of the street, until a truck comes to dispose of them.

AMH HABRE - MARBLES AND LIMESTONE

KAHALE - MT. LEBANON

AMH Habre is a stone factory located in Kahale, Mt. Lebanon which also recieved its stone from various quarries and stores them on site. The company is less artisinal than the previous, it has all of the machine previously mentioned, with an addition of several CNC cutters, single belt cutting, water jet cutters, sanding and rounding machines.

The use of vector guided CNC and Waterjet machines, allows for more intricate and precise stone finishes, in a faster more effecient way. SNIC is a local provider of stone cutting machines, used by several of the industries visited.

Muller Industries - Roof Tile Factory

Muller Industries SARL located in mazraat yachoua on Mt. Lebanon, Is one of the last local clay roof tile manufacturers left. They recieved different types clays from various quarries in the country to make the perfect mix for production. The factory is equpied with clay presses, mixers, conveyors, extruders, dryers and a tunnel kiln.

Specific ratios of different clays are transported with crawler and introduced into a crushed that refines the clay into small particles. An air current then carries the particles onto a conveyor belt that takes it to a water mixer. When the clay has the right consistency, it is taken to an extruder that make the tile shape, it is then pressed into a gypsum mold and then left to dry before it is cooked in the kiln.

Muller Industries - Roof Tile Factory

All imperfect clay tiles stacked in piles in the factory backyard and then reused to maken clay mixes for new tiles, or sold as a ground stabilizer for pedestrian footpaths.

Blatt Chaya is an artisinal floor tile manufacturer in dekwaneh, Beirut. They make a wide range of traditional floor tiles using cement and a series of natural colorants. Equipped with a steel frame mold and a copper pattern mold, one employee can make 1 tile every 2 minutes. The different patterns produced each corresponds to the lebanese village where it was invented.

MAR MIKHAEL RAILWAY STATION

COASTAL STRIP