architect: Youssef Tohme
location: Lebanon, Broumana
year: 2009
We work under a special circumstance for this project: a house extension for a private lot in the suburban Beirut, where nature tends to disappear.
These Mountains’ sides overlooking Beirut coast ravaged by hazardous construction during war. Within this context, we mainly look for the preservation of the existing landscape,
a pine forest passing through the lot, reclaiming itself as a rare land within the massive deforestation activities in Lebanon. Here the landscape is stronger than the house.
The client being a wealthy and a complex person, we chose to reveal a scenario of his life instances through different functions inserted separately within this natural site. It is an interesting game with the existing landscape. The project take birth between the existing tree truncs, it imprints their shape, their shadows…The forms are pure; the space is nude. We search a calm and serene mood.
The relationship with the exterior through the Jacuzzi, Reception, W.C., Children Cabanas, interventions is empowered by huge frames where nature is highly valorized. It is very interesting to manipulate the givens in a specific geographical context, trying to reinforce it and merging it with the contextual construction requests.
