The long forgotten and abandoned railway station in Mar Mikhayel Street, Downtown Beirut seems like a perfect playground for re-establishing new programmatic ideas and sustainable mobility city hub. After the devastating event that took place on August 4, 2020, where a huge explosion destroyed the port of Beirut and the entire city.

The location was later used by non-governmental ‘’bottom-up’’ organizations as their operating hub. That gives us an idea, to further develop the whole site as a public multi-programatic area, where all the positive intersections could happen. Artists, NGO’s, start-ups, restaurants, bars, markets, events, education, museums, ateliers, and many more would make the area attractive to a wider spectrum of visitors and age groups, a place for the city.

Another important development strategy is to re-establish trams (sustainable public transport) into the old Beirut downtown. From the chosen location, there are three new tram lines following the direction of old rail tracks towards the Lebanese mountains, the port and Gemmayze – Mar Mikhayel street. We are using crowd and the creative area as a generator to promote sustainable mobility.

Design wise “movability’’ and “flows’’ are the main language. Rails are kept on the site and used as an infrastructure to move offices, bars, and workshops through the area. Programmatic setting is never the same. Space is always changing, is always fluid, always interesting. Flexibility offered by the span of the roof covering the area and the position of the rails offer the users to redefine programmatic and event composition daily, monthly, or by season. Architecture or urbanism became a playground or a stage, not a fixed and defined position.