A NEW FUTURE FOR CHARLES HELOU STATION

The workshop was focused on the transformation of Beirut’s Charles Helou Station, an element within the downtown for switching between historical and industrial tissues, between urban traces and infrastructural scale.

Built in 1973 following the Masterplan designed by the French architect Michael Ecocahrd for the upgrading of the harbor, the station is the main hub between the Beirut’s centre, the commercial harbor and the surroundings: international terminal for the buses coming from Syria and Jordan, a part of being the station for routes to Jbail, Batroun and Tripoli, the building is an amazing hybrid between architecture and infrastructure, with its roof occupied by the coastal highway.

Re-design the station and a portion of its neighborhood, setting new functions and architectures able to save the urban and social continuity, was the task we assumed, showing how the entire Rmeil’s sector could find a new equilibrium and role,  within the changing scenarios nowadays lived by the Lebanese capital.