Originally published in Metropolis Issue June 2018 and online at Metropolismag.com
The transformable Modulofts tower, designed by local firm FSA, morphs to accommodate changing lifestyles and provides new perspectives on a changing Beirut.
“Beirut is a profoundly complex and contradictory city. The vaunted jet-setters’ playground of the Middle East, with sparkling new towers designed by Herzog & de Meuron and Foster + Partners, is also home to tens of thousands of Syrian and Palestinian refugees. It’s a coastal metropolis of over 2 million that offers little public transportation, and Lamborghinis sit bumper to bumper with minibuses in its congested streets.
“Our context is chaos,” explains Fouad Samara, a Lebanese architect whose eponymous practice is situated on the first floor of Modulofts, its most recently completed project. Born in Beirut, Samara studied at the American University of Beirut and the University of Bath in England and has a keen grasp of Lebanese and international architectural history (with a particular focus on Modernism) that suits his highly intellectual approach to design. At the University of Bath, he studied under the late Patrick Hodgkinson, architect of London’s Brunswick Centre, and is fiercely devoted to the work of Alison and Peter Smithson…”
Originally published in Metropolis Issue June 2018 and online at Metropolismag.com
