The Knowledge and Innovation Center in Tripoli Competition entry by Maroun Lahoud

In the vicinity of Oscar Niemeyer’s modern architecture Jewel, the entry of Maroun Lahoud offers the opportunity to highlight the fragile condition of preserving the built heritage in Lebanon.
-text by the author

In order to ensure its durability, our intervention fundamentally integrates the existing buildings on the site, in the heart of the project, in one global, unitary and identifiable scheme.

The existing becomes the inevitable line of force of the project, intertwining new urban typologies of working and gathering spaces, creating serendipity, and reinforcing synergy between all occupants, in an optimal and dynamic environment.

These typologies are drawn from the architectural morphologies of the region in order to intimately anchor the Knowledge and Innovation Center in its surroundings.

The project is set at a distance from the Rachid Karami International Fair by three landscaped sequences to gradually absorb its historical charge. Impregnated by the architectural aspect of the fair – concrete core and shell – the project offers flexible, evolving and adaptable platforms, ensuring it a sustainable future.

Thus, the KIC denotes by its contextual integration a strong local identity, reflecting its unique milieu, both delicate by its relationship to the existing, and powerful by its unity, providing a determinant impact in the landscape of Tripoli.

The project offers flexible, evolving and adaptable platforms, ensuring it a sustainable future.

Diagram

Facts & Credits
Competition  The Knowledge and Innovation Center in Tripoli, Lebanon
Architecture  MAROUN LAHOUD
Team  Georges Soueid, Omar Bsaibes, Samir Khairallah
Area  60 000 m2 BUA
Client  Tripoli Special Economic Zone, The Republic of Lebanon
Status Competition