HOUSE OF LOSS

FOR-PEOPLE-WHO-DANCE-WITH-FIRE

Individual work

Thesis Studio, 2021

Tutor: Marijke Davey

Independent Thesis Brief

This thesis perceives ‘loss’ as an invitation to response, especially in the context of Beirut, Lebanon, which has accumulated various forms of loss throughout her history. Using poetry and acrylic painting as the main method of research, this thesis speculates ways to manifest loss into space, and seeks for a critical position or commentary towards the issues of loss. An emergency coordination department has been absent in the former port system. In order to ensure a safe, creative, and commemorated port, this thesis designs a House of Loss for people who dance with fire.

Beirut is a city that went through several stages of loss and reconstruction.

Loss is ambiguous to comprehend, while losses pile up, at your feet, and behind the space you see. So tall, it starts crumpling. To swallow you with a throttle. To make you react.

Through poetry, painting, and architectural intervention, this thesis manifests four issues of loss in the context, or loss of context, of the after-blast Beirut. These issues are: loss of identity, loss of life, loss of built fabric, and loss of memory.

Architecture moves forward not by becoming more rigorous, but more imaginative. Encounter more than you can think of. Reconstruct our collected knowledge to fit as a whole. And such reconstruction will be an infinite game.

There exists a place where the residents head out for every battle against loss. They are agile, admirable, and anonymous. Sometimes some of them never come back. They are people who dance with fire.

Every good firefighter loves fire. And the fire instructor is a pyromania. The heavy protective suit wraps around the body, insulating the frenzy heat, but never the call for help.

Amidst the crackling and popping bursts of fire, rescuers use their ears to scan for yelling from people, from cats, and silent screams from paintings. A smooth curve that holds on lives and civilisation.

At the shadowy site boundary, paramedics lean their ears to weeping survivors. Sighs and solace echo in a spiral tunnel. A spiral that mingles shattered souls.

The time froze at 6:07 PM on the day. Nine firefighters and one paramedic were killed in the devastating Beirut blast next to the site. With elongated silence, one takes a linear walk through photos and trophies, glories and commemoration.