The Public Living Room: Beirut’s Newest Free Space
Meet The Public Living Room in Badaro, a project by the rppl initiative.
The team behind this initiative consists of Céline Saad, Myriam Bechara, and Mona Ghazali. The women came up with the idea for this initiative as a result to a need: to have more free public spaces open to everyone, without having to buy something to be seated.
In an interview with Mona Ghazali, she explains why she feels it is their responsibility. “As architects, conscious of our responsibility towards our city, we thought about taking the matter into our own hands, hoping to make a change one space at a time. Overall, we aim to encourage diversity and community building through reviving and creating such spaces where everyone can meet, interact and socialize for free.”
This initiative is fresh, and their most recent and only project is The Public Living Room, which they have been working on since March. The project was even featured in Beirut Design Week 2018, in which designers and students participated in a workshop where they designed and built a public space while learning woodwork and metal work skills from professionals Naja Rechmani and Rawad Rizk.
Ghazali tells us that they plan to keep the place animated by weekly free events such as movie nights, game nights, jam sessions, and more.
The team’s vision for the long run, as Ghazali tells us, is to change people’s perception of public spaces in Lebanon through different kinds of projects such as tours, events, reviving old public spots and creating new ones.
They are also targeting towns and villages, by helping to create master plans which include public spaces, preparing rural areas for the eventual decentralization, and exploring their potential before they get affected by congestion.
