ISSAM FARES INSTITUTE
a project by Zaha Hadid Architects
Bliss, Lebanon, completed 2014
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The ‘Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs’ (IFI), designed by Zaha Hadid Architects, has been completed at the American University of Beirut as part of an on-going campus redevelopment. The facility immediately serves the school’s students and administrators, but on a larger scale is a hub for local, regional, and international academics, researchers, and politicians. The IFI comprises a rigorous educational program that the design of this building seeks to facilitate. It aims to harness, develop, and initiate research of the arab world, in order to enhance and broaden debate on public policy and international relations.
The IFI was established as a neutral, dynamic, civil, and open space where people representing all viewpoints in society cangather and discuss significant issues, anchored in a long-standing commitment to mutual understanding and high quality research. The institute aims to harness, develop and initiate research of the Arab world to enhance and broaden debate on public policy and international relations. It currently works on several programs addressing the region’s issues including the refugee crisis, climate change, food security, and water scar city, youth, social justice and development, urbanism, and the UN in the Arab world.
In 2006, the competition jury selected ZHA’s proposal to build the new institute. The design significantly reduces the building’s footprint by ‘floating’ much of the IFI’s facilities above the entrance courtyard to preserve the existing landscape integral to the 2002 master-plan, create a new public space for the campus, and establish links from the university’s Central Oval to the Middle Campus and Mediterranean Sea to the north.
The 3,000 sq. m. Issam Fares Institute building is defined by the many routes and connections within AUB; interweaving the pathways and views within the campus to create a forum for the exchange of ideas – a centre of interaction and dialogue – at the heart of the university.
By elevating a majority of the building’s mass through a large cantilever on the structure’s west side, the building’s footprint is greatly reduced, allowing for an increase in outdoor public spaces. The surrounding landscape was given thorough attention to create fluid linkages from the campus to the interior, while also producing areas for relaxation. The two ground floor entrances seek to blur the boundary between inside and outside, and interweave at their meeting point to create a center point of circulation.
________________________________________________________
The ‘Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs’ (IFI), designed by Zaha Hadid Architects, has been completed at the American University of Beirut as part of an on-going campus redevelopment. The facility immediately serves the school’s students and administrators, but on a larger scale is a hub for local, regional, and international academics, researchers, and politicians. The IFI comprises a rigorous educational program that the design of this building seeks to facilitate. It aims to harness, develop, and initiate research of the arab world, in order to enhance and broaden debate on public policy and international relations.
The IFI was established as a neutral, dynamic, civil, and open space where people representing all viewpoints in society cangather and discuss significant issues, anchored in a long-standing commitment to mutual understanding and high quality research. The institute aims to harness, develop and initiate research of the Arab world to enhance and broaden debate on public policy and international relations. It currently works on several programs addressing the region’s issues including the refugee crisis, climate change, food security, and water scar city, youth, social justice and development, urbanism, and the UN in the Arab world.
In 2006, the competition jury selected ZHA’s proposal to build the new institute. The design significantly reduces the building’s footprint by ‘floating’ much of the IFI’s facilities above the entrance courtyard to preserve the existing landscape integral to the 2002 master-plan, create a new public space for the campus, and establish links from the university’s Central Oval to the Middle Campus and Mediterranean Sea to the north.
The 3,000 sq. m. Issam Fares Institute building is defined by the many routes and connections within AUB; interweaving the pathways and views within the campus to create a forum for the exchange of ideas – a centre of interaction and dialogue – at the heart of the university.
By elevating a majority of the building’s mass through a large cantilever on the structure’s west side, the building’s footprint is greatly reduced, allowing for an increase in outdoor public spaces. The surrounding landscape was given thorough attention to create fluid linkages from the campus to the interior, while also producing areas for relaxation. The two ground floor entrances seek to blur the boundary between inside and outside, and interweave at their meeting point to create a center point of circulation.
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text and images via:
Arch Daily: http://goo.gl/Shb2uT
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