Turning the Rubble of War Into a Temporary Residence

Pair of architects suggests efficient way to build shelters
By Bojan Preradovic
Special to The Daily Star
Tuesday, August 28, 2007

BEIRUT: "A good solution is a simple solution," says Nachaat Ouayda, managing partner of IDEA sarl. Ouayda and his partner, Sami Markus, are both architects who met while teaching at the American University of Beirut in the late 1980's. The brainchild of their collaboration is IDEA sarl, an architectural and professional management practice and consultancy firm, which a year after the 2006 war with Israel is attempting to raise awareness of an innovation in temporary housing, engineered by Ouayda and Markus themselves.

The relevance of IDEA's conception is even more prominent in the minds of its creators because of the problem posed by the current conflict between the Lebanese Army and Fatah al-Islam militants, and the extensive destruction that the latter has caused in the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp.

"Project R" evolved as a solution to the problems that arose as a result of Israel's 34-day massive bombing campaign against Lebanon - most notably, the rubble that countless houses in the South of the country had been reduced to. The latter, coupled with an urgent need to find shelter for close to a million displaced people, compelled Ouayda and Markus to come up with an alternative to the conventional prefabricated concrete housing units and porta-cabins.

"Mind you, this is not a house," emphasizes Ouayda.

"This unit is transitional shelter," he continues, "and it's not meant to replace permanent houses in villages."

Citing the advantages of using "Project R" units, Ouayda adds that "you don't need any steel or concrete, and no specialized skilled manpower, while no foundations and a minimal amount of raw material are required."

The absence of a need for the latter was a fundamental feature of the product aimed at the disaster zone in Lebanon's South, because the widespread destruction that the region's bridges and roads had undergone would have made material transportation a cumbersome affair to say the least.

Markus and Ouayda hence decided that the raw material would be the rubble itself, conceptualizing "a 70 m2 house that can be built from the rubble obtained from a 150 m2 house."

The most prominent feature of the design is the 'Gabion system', which is a wire mesh module doubly coated with zinc and aluminum, and used for wall retention in architectural systems. If ground transportation facilities have been impaired, as they were in Lebanon following last summer's war, a large volume of the wire mesh can easily be folded and airlifted to the desired destination.

Pieces of rubble, 10 to 20 cm in size, are used to fill the Gabion module, which, because of its resulting labyrinth-like internal arrangement, maintains the heat and moisture-resistant property of the one meter-wide wall. At the same time, the Gabion mesh is easily obtainable on the market, already folded in boxes.

The roof of the structure, a sandwich panel insulated by light-weight steel sheets, is probably the most expensive piece of the puzzle, and would require a light-weight crane to lift and position it onto the 'rubble house'.

Most importantly, "Project R" is competitive in terms of cost, because "the total cost of this system is about 50 or 60 percent less than the same metric area that another conventional temporary housing system can provide."

But Ouayda is emphatic about the fact that his invention "is not supposed to compete with or replace porta-cabins and prefabricated concrete units."

On August 14 of last year, after the cease-fire, the "Project R" concept was published in various newspapers. However, Ouayda and Markus purposely did not register their novelty for copyright before telling the world about it, so that civil communities and the Lebanese people themselves could put the model to use without incurring any additional costs.IDEA's innovation, like any pioneering creation, was greeted with suspicion and skepticism by government officials and NGO's alike, to whom the concept was pitched. The classic "it sounds too good to be true" reaction was pervasive, and "Project R" would not see the light of day until friends of the managing partners and believers in the product invested their own money to construct a test model at a space provided by the Ghobeiry municipality.

"I had several concerns about the test model," Ouayda says, "one of which was the protection against elements, meaning rain, heat and all other types of weather.

"The model performed wonderfully though," he enthuses, "and tests indicated that it was stable because of its weight, height, and thickness, and it can perform seismically even though no concrete is used in the structure except for a thin layer on the floor."

Beside the mixed reaction to IDEA's innovation, the completion of the model itself would maintain the cycle of bad luck. "The model was finished on December 1 of last year, but that was also the day when the current political turmoil started," says Ouayda, in reference to the ten-month old power struggle between the government and opposition, "so we never had a chance to conduct a mass media campaign.

"This product can be put to use in Nahr al-Bared right now," he suggests, and adds that "what they want to do now is rent land to buy and place prefabricated houses while they clear the rubble and then reconstruct the camp.

"Instead, with "Project R," they can rent the land, sort and clear the rubble onto this rented land, and construct the temporary houses using the proposed Gabion system to provide immediate shelter for the refugees.

"That way, they would have sorted 90 percent of the rubble already, and it would be easy to clear off or recycle once the reconstruction of the camp is completed," Ouayda adds.

Base units are not designed exclusively as lodging formations. They can be combined and subdivided to make multi-purpose structures, such as medical, education and business centers.

Probably the most attractive feature of the unit, as Ouayda outlines and as far as environmentalists are concerned, is that they can be used again - the rubble used as filling for the walls can be transported back to gravel rehabilitation sites, quarries, as well as river banks, while the same material can be recycled in the construction of libraries, townhouses, and other communal buildings.

"The difficulties we have endured with this project so far have been out of our hands," Ouayda states.

"But I hope that the disadvantaged and displaced people of Lebanon can finally put this innovation to use and supplement what is already available on the temporary housing market, in order to find a more effective solution for the problems of the community."

Lebanon Proves To Be Rocky Ground For Rock'n'Roll

Beirut's performing artists talk about working in the Paris of the Middle East and the lure of the region's Vegas

By Bojan Preradovic
Special to The Daily Star
Friday, August 24, 2007

BEIRUT: Lebanon's social and political fabric were not the only victims of last summer's 34-day Israeli onslaught. Seemingly irreparable damage was done to the country's fledgling rock music and performance scene as well. There's some irony in this. Lebanese artists may have an ambiguous relationship to the country's perennial volatility, but it has been the bread and butter of local rock musicians. Their lamentations are imbued with such themes as lost faith, resentment, and disenchantment with the social milieu.

Before the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005, Beirut nurtured a respectable roster of longstanding rock groups - with Blend, Negative, Soul Active, Scrambled Eggs, Soap Kills, and April Ash, to name a few.

Now many of those artists have permanently disbanded. Others, like Blend (one of the city's only homegrown acts that have been able to secure a record deal with a major label), still manage, albeit infrequently, to pack a local club.

Any chance that Beirut rockers might have that was not obliterated by last summer's war, is imperiled by the widespread unrest, bombings and political assassinations in the past year.

This precarious environment has also been the main factor exacerbating what Dimitri Saba, Blend's lead singer, calls "the dwindling number of bands and rock musicians in Lebanon."

Lebanon's rock artists don't ask for much. Most own their own instruments and equipment - amplifiers, effects pedals, cables, microphones, and stands. They usually travel significant distances across Beirut and its suburbs, sometimes by bus or taxi, to get to their rehearsal space or performance venue. Even so, average earnings for a two-hour performance can be as low as $40 per band member.

Bars and pubs are often averse to bearing the costs associated with hosting shows, while "their managers and owners generally treat small-time performers not as partners, but as workforce to deprecate, exploit, and view with suspicion," says Riad Mouawad, lead guitarist for Negative, the now-defunct local rock and nu-metal outfit.

Blend's experience, however, suggests that major-label signings enjoy a somewhat different treatment with regard to venues. "The ones we have come in contact with have tried their best to provide the band with every single requirement," says Saba. "There are still limitations, but their help is significant all the same."

Mouawad is the sole member of Negative who still lives and works in Lebanon. His three partners have all emigrated to Dubai, in search of professional and lucrative employment opportunities.

Having finally recorded and released a single - after a decade of club dates and increasing prominence on the scene - Negative met a fate common to many of Beirut's rock bands in the past two years. They were effectively forced into exile by eruptions of violence in the country.

"I hated spending three hours before and after performing to assemble and dissemble the equipment," says Mouawad, expressing his frustration with the limited local venues and how they hinder to the performance experience. "I wanted to just get up there and play, because those were moments of ecstasy for me."

Likewise, Saba is reminiscent of the time before the current turmoil when there "were a lot more bands, which meant there were many more venues to play ... at the moment," he adds, "there are less than a handful of venues where bands can feature regularly."

"In the past," he continues, "you could play almost anywhere you could fit three head bangers and a drummer."

Currently working on the follow-up to their 'Act One' (2003) studio album, Blend have been the embodiment of the Beirut rock scene's potential for commercial success. "When Blend was picked up by EMI Arabia," says Saba, "the market was so saturated that it was inevitable for one or two to make it through.

"When you look at the ages of the bands who are currently signed," he opines, "Blend, Scrambled Eggs, Kimaera, and so on - you can see that they were 'in their prime,' say in 2000 or 2001, the peak years of that specific era in Lebanese rock."

Over in Dubai, where most of Mouawad's band mates have moved, musicians say live music and performing arts in general are significantly more appreciated.

"It's really quite exciting when you put it into perspective," says Natalie Abulhosn, a Lebanese Indie rock singer/songwriter and performer who was compelled to leave Lebanon for Dubai during last year's war. "The audience [in Dubai] is always surprised and welcoming when they attend a live performance."

Having been extensively exposed to both the glitter of the "rose-colored" megalopolis that is Dubai, as well as the gloom and climate of unpredictability that plagues Beirut, Abulhosn believes that a resident in the Gulf city-state is far better equipped to be productive and creative.

"Dubai has the resources, money and boredom, all of which fuel every scene [the music industry] invests time and energy in."

She emphasizes that "Lebanon has a scarcity problem. You feel that in the music."

Saba, for his part, passionately opposes moving his band to Dubai and has a bone to pick with the transient experience that the city personifies. "If Blend is to relocate to a more stable environment to nurture its musical career, it would be to Europe, as essentially that is where the market and money are, which can enable the band to stand on its own feet."

In reference to those Lebanese rock and indie musicians who have been displaced by the ongoing situation at home, Abulhosn adds, "all of us are grasping aimlessly at some form of security as we are completely uprooted - psychologically and nationally."

She is, ironically perhaps, both concerned and thankful for the state of her native land.

"Lebanon, unfortunately, has far too much development ahead to reach the level of superficiality Dubai offers, and I hope it stays that way ... Lebanon is the chaotic break people need from Dubai, to remind themselves that they exist, and that Dubai is a fleeting dream to be used until further notice."

On this point, Saba concurs. "Beirut is and always will be the hotbed of talent," he says, "especially when it comes to art forms where east meets west ... but I fear that ultimately it may drive a talented artist away in his pursuit of success, rather than compel him to stay."