Plot # 1282 is a residential project located on the northern periphery of Beirut at the proximity of one the city’s abandoned and unused railway terminal, military barracks, leftovers of agricultural land and a 30‐meter wide highway. The zone in which the project is located is not presently considered residential. The project’s program consists of 95 industrial lofts with surfaces ranging from 100m2 to 650m2.
The floor slabs are organized around nine exposed cores, each core feeding a maximum of two apartments per floor. The lofts feature 5.3m high ceilings with open space plans and minimal interior partitioning.
In its present state, the site enjoys unobstructed panoramic views on all orientations through the totality of the perimeter of the plot. As a result of that, all loft spaces enjoy full transparency of their facades with openings that span from floor to ceiling on all exterior elevations.
The site perimeter is of 430 meters of which less than 12 meters are facing a public access road, so that 97% of the site periphery faces parcels on which buildings could be erected at some point in the future.
In an unforeseeable future, as the surrounding plots get built, and with the gradual densification of the immediate environment, the full apertures of Plot # 1282’s facades will face unpredictable situations that the project’s morphology responds to by its continuous setback on the totality of the perimeter of the site and the gradual recess of the floor plates. This creates generous breathing corridors between the project’s peripheral limits and any future buildings of the unpredictably developed surroundings, due to the lack of a master plan.

DW5 Bernard Khoury

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