Situated between Beirut and its the port on a site that acts and looks like a leftover buffer space, the project aims to become a hinge between both sides by creating an architecture that is a visual and a physical connector between port and city. The project uses the 9 meters drop between city and port to embed in the ground, gently unfolding as one moves down from city to the Port’s lower ground. The massing emerges from the landscape and gently unfolds onto the site interweaving the project and the topography. The project merges three programs in an effort to connect the Karantina community to the Port not only spatially but also programmatically, addressing the existing activities of urban maintenance and logistics with the social aspect of the area studied. The program therefore houses logistical functions such as an Outsourcing Hub and a Free Transaction Zone on its lower levels in order to make the port logistics transparent to the public while accommodating several communal and public functions on its upper level and roof such as library , auditorium , exhibition spaces and urban park ..
The vertical circulation and courtyards disrupts the horizontal stratification of the project, engaging all floors and programs together by enhancing at some points the circulation within and by bringing light onto the spaces embedded in the ground.