Foster + Partners has completed 3Beirut – the first of the practice’s projects in Lebanon.
The project designed by Foster + Partners is located in the central district of Beirut and is part of a broader master plan aimed at regenerating the city center, where numerous buildings of other architects known as the tower of dwellings are being erected by Orange Architects, Issam Fares Institute by Zaha Hadid or the housing tower by  Herzog & de Meuron

3Beirut project is made up of three limestone clad towers and the scheme is focused heavily on public programing within the creation of new pedestrian routes in addition to new landscaped spaces that connect the historic center to the harbor. On the south side, the central tower has been pushed back to create a landscaped forecourt.

Luke Fox, Head of Studio and Senior Executive Partner at Foster + Partners, remarked, “We are delighted that 3Beirut has reached completion, which is the result of close collaboration between the client and Foster + Partners. The result is a high-quality building that gives back to the city.”
 

Description of project by Foster + Partners

Responding directly to the site and culture of Beirut, the scheme creates a sustainable residential and retail development in the heart of the city. The development also strengthens Beirut’s role as a centre for tourism, commerce, retail and entertainment while providing new green spaces at ground level for the city to enjoy.

The scheme is located in Beirut Central District on a prestigious site within the wider Solidere masterplan for the regeneration of the city centre. Particular consideration was given to the public realm and the creation of new pedestrian routes through the site combined with new landscaped spaces that connect the historic centre to the harbour. On the south side, the central tower has been pushed back to create a landscaped forecourt.

The scheme is made up of three limestone clad towers that provide an animated ground plane of shops, cafes, restaurants, a fitness centre, an art gallery and public gardens. The lobbies are connected to the ground plane with a distinctive water features that flows from the inside to the outside creating a calming sound for the public.

3Beirut’s glazed north façade provides spectacular views of the harbour, while the south facing side steps down in height, with terraces and green roofs that help integrate the towers into the urban grain. The staggered layout of the towers also helps avoid apartments that overlook adjacent units, allowing residents a greater sense of privacy.

Luke Fox, Head of Studio and Senior Executive Partner at Foster + Partners, remarked, “We are delighted that 3Beirut has reached completion, which is the result of close collaboration between the client and Foster + Partners. The result is a high-quality building that gives back to the city.”

Faris Smadi, CEO SV Properties & Construction said, “SV Properties & Construction is proud to have completed this landmark residential development with world renowned architects Foster + Partners. It has been a real privilege to work together to realize this iconic scheme at the heart of the Beirut Central District, and one which will provide a great legacy not only for ourselves but also for the city.

The development embodies the unique vibrancy of the city. A wide range of amenities, including a leisure suite, featuring a 26m pool and gym, and the McLaren showroom on the ground floor were inaugurated recently – bringing life to the area. Spurred on by the success of the recent exhibitions series held in temporary art galleries on the ground floor, a regular programme of art and culture events is being planned for the future, making 3Beirut a true social focus for the city.”

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Architects
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Foster + Partners
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Collaborating Architect
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Samir Khairallah & Partners
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Collaborators
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M+E Engineer.- AME. Landscape Architect.- Vladimir Djurovic. Lighting Engineer.- Speirs + Major
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Client
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SV Properties and Construction
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Area
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100,000.0 m²
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Dates
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Completed.- 2017


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Norman Foster is considered by many to be the most prominent architect in Britain. He won the 1999 Pritzker Architecture Prize and the 2009 Príncipe de Asturias de las Artes Prize.

Lord Foster rebuilt the Reichstag as a new German Parliament in Berlin and designed a contemporary Great Court for the British Museum. He linked St. Paul's Cathedral to the Tate Modern with the Millennium Bridge, a steel footbridge across the Thames. He designed the Hearst Corporation Building in Manhattan, at 57th Street and Eighth Avenue.

He was born in Manchester, England, in 1935. Among his firm’s many other projects are London’s City Hall, the Bilbao Metro in Spain, the Canary Wharf Underground Station in London and the renovated courtyard of the Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery in Washington.

In the 1970s, Lord Foster was one of the most visible practitioners of high-tech architecture that fetishized machine culture. His triumphant 1986 Hong Kong and Shanghai bank building, conceived as a kit-of-parts plugged into a towering steel frame, was capitalism's answer to the populist Pompidou Center in Paris.

Nicolai Ouroussoff, The Times’s architecture critic, has written that although Lord Foster’s work has become sleeker and more predictable in recent years, his forms are always driven by an internal structural logic, and they treat their surroundings with a refreshing bluntness.

Awarded the Prince of Asturias of the Arts 2009.

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Published on: December 8, 2017
Cite: "Foster's first project in the new Beirut. 3Beirut by Foster + Partners" METALOCUS. Accessed
<http://www.metalocus.es/en/news/fosters-first-project-new-beirut-3beirut-foster-partners> ISSN 1139-6415
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