“I’ve found that the only thing that brings me peace is working with my hands,
Remaining in motion, not only to preserve, but to process.
You are at once reminiscing and looking forward.”
_Ayah Bazian

Kneading, digging, cutting, mixing, compressing, raking,
the dough,
the earth.

The proposal is a collective ground, binding inhabitants of the Bekaa valley in Lebanon through programme and materiality. Using geologically aware construction methods, the project suggests a hyperlocal approach to material providence by using a cut fill operation in order to move and transform the earth on site, inhabiting the ground and making bricks and mixes to construct vaults and surface finishes.

The technical thesis is about material consciousness, the balance between the excavated and the reused, the reduction of transportation of material, and its transformation. It is an attempt at blurring the boundary between the urban and geological fabric, suggesting that the people might be able to rethink their place within the country at a time of turmoil by understanding their place in the landscape. Trying to reconnect the people of the area of the Bekaa through secular means, by identifying the fabric of the land itself as the unifying feature to be rediscovered. Instead of falling back on corrupted sectarian value-structures, we can focus on that which physically comprises the territory.
Regaining understanding of local resources and construction processes may help remind people what they have in common.

The project was developed at the Architectural Association School Of Architecture.

KOOZ What prompted the project?

SR Diversify attention away from Beirut, looking to find a binder for the people elsewhere following the collapse of the nation. The project started with field research in the landscape of the Bekaa region in Lebanon – recording the landscape, talking to locals, and visiting the surroundings. I was driven by the country’s rich geology and its subsequent cultural influence. Whilst getting to know the earthen vernacular that extends beyond the country borders, and accompanies it with a desire to move forward. The design project was prompted after visits to the abandoned earth houses, all deemed obsolete due to their collapsed earthen roof. I proposed to develop a roof system to retrofit these houses, starting with consolidating the edges of the walls and adding timbrel vaults with different apertures and sizes.

KOOZ What questions does the project raise and which does it address?

SR Can fostering a relationship between the people and their geology be achieved by developing tools to manipulate earth at the scale of the landscape? Using a cut/fill operation, we can subtract from the earth on site in order to inhabit it and build it up with the excavated material. We dig too much, move earth too far; so far that it has created a paradox. In the places where earth is, and can be extracted, built with and within, we now find clay and quarried materials shipped from elsewhere (ceramic tiles for traditional roofs are shipped from Italy to beirut, 2200km). A new anthropogenic geology is formed. Over time, through increasingly efficient techniques, trade and consistency of trading through larger monopolies, earth became instrumentalized. As a result of this, we are not only contributing to the cycle but also losing our relationship to our land. In this project I suggest a hyperlocal approach to material providence, a geologically aware construction method that will allow us to be in tune with our surroundings.

KOOZ How does the project approach the relationship between architecture and the environment?

SR The project looks at the boundaries between habitat and ‘wild’, initially made from the same material. The role of materiality in this case lies in building a bridge between the habitat and the ‘wild’, not only in the direct creation of an ecosystem but also in understanding the properties to which earth reacts within its environment. An earth house stays cool in the summer and warm in the winter, it reacts to seasonal changes but also to day to day temperature fluctuations. The proposal also operates at a larger scale, beyond the traditional ‘architectural scale’ proposing foot paths down to the agricultural lands, and further up in the mountains where a refuge is proposed, nestled in the clay landscape. It’s an attempt to pull the human outside their allocated space and out into what would normally be described as the non-human zone.

KOOZ What drew you to challenge and specifically explore the materiality of architecture?

SR I have always had a fascination with materials and their transformation, the endless techniques and potentials of every old and newly discovered material. This year specifically I looked at the earthen geological layer; in particular, clay – the globally ubiquitous material used by the first civilisations to leave a mark and keep track of the first ‘transactions’ but also as a building material. I looked at material culture and technology as part of understanding the rural community, and how the landscape and geology have played a role as a decisive characteristic and engine of its local history. By identifying their surroundings as useful material, to extract, build with or within, the people became geological agents, developing a method that allowed a social development and cultural manifestation through their architecture.

KOOZ What are for you the greatest opportunities which can arise from constructing “better"?

SR In this specific project and location, in the best case scenario, the implications of constructing ‘better’ would be the engagement with our direct surroundings. The proposal would require a democratisation of knowledge regarding the construction methods and material manipulation, through which locals would have new work opportunities and an understanding of a proposed technique that can then be developed in their own way.

Although the materials are all local, the techniques are globally borrowed and their adaptation to the area could ultimately create a new vernacular. My hope is that through this geologically aware construction method, people would be thinking more about having less of an ecological impact, producing less waste, and also about species around them to foster more biodiversity.

KOOZ What is the power of the architectural imaginary?

SR To me, the architectural imaginary is a creation of alternate realities when faced with current painful realities. Its power lies in its existence between the imaginary utopia and reality, which has strong psychological influences. The imaginary holds a level of abstraction that creates a space for free association, the subject – be it a material, texture, color, form or object – can be perceived as familiar and has the ability to create a collective experience, memory or identity.