“Where should we look for Libya’s identity?”
“How can we make
Libya’s towns into better places?”
These are questions
that will - or at least should - come to dominate Libya's built environment
debate. They were questions that we asked and were asked by students during our
recent visit to Tripoli University’s Department of Architecture and Urbanism
and we had discussed the same two months earlier with Libyan academics,
practitioners and government ministers during our visit to Tripoli with the
Royal Institute of British Architects. This time Roddy Langmuir and myself were
in Tripoli at the invitation of Architectural
Initiative – an organisation dedicated to connecting international architects
with Tripoli University, Department of Architecture and Urban Planning.
We believe that the
answers to these questions – “identity”and “place” – lie in Libya itself. “Context,
climate and an architecture of place-making” was the title for lectures given
to a public audience at the King’s Old Palace in Tripoli and again to students
at the University – “The importance of place, people and communities in making
architecture that belongs.” This was also the message of our student workshops,
working with the next generation of about-to-graduate architects to build up a
logical process by which to produce appropriate design.
Libya – as across
the world – has grown to become reliant on the car, air-conditioning and the
light bulb. A warm climate and abundant land and energy make it OK to make
windowless, stand-alone buildings in a sea of car parking. Libya has forgotten
the importance of street and place, thinking instead of buildings as objects
and rarely of the quality of the spaces that surround them. Turning this tide
will not be easy but it will become harder still if the international
architectural community fails to actively support practitioners, students,
teachers and policy-makers at the front line of the debate.
The enthusiasm of
the final year students that we met in Tripoli was as understandable as it was
exhausting. Their eagerness comes after years of waiting for visiting
architects to take time out of their pressured visits to Libya to engage with
the country beyond the needs of their own projects or the pursuit of others.
Further, Libya’s contemporary appetite for icon buildings can tempt students
down “blind alleys” of picture-making and shape-making, rather than the greater
challenges of mass housing and urban design. Disengagement from the real
problems facing Libya’s built environment is no longer an option, even in the
university environment.
Architecture
Initiative partner and Head of School at Tripoli University, Osama Abdul Hadi,
has set a syllabus of designing real buildings – “Live Projects”– forcing a
relevance upon the students by positioning them between the commercial
interests of real clients and the demands for design quality from (what Architecture
Initiative hopes will become) a steady stream of visiting Architects as
critics. As proxies for the identity and place-making debate, the students must
confront the issues that will define Libya in years to come. The evident
appetite for our visit showed that Libya’s architectural students and the
profession alike are ready for the challenge.
Architectural Initiative
Architectural Initiative
Architectural Initiative was created by British Architect Ghada Al-Bayati, Libyan Architectural student Shadda Elmagri and Libyan Architect Osama Abdul Hadi and has the support of Libyan scholars who are interested in creating collaborative academic partnerships between international built environment institutes and Libya's educational institutions. Architectural Initiative's mission is to run architectural programs within Libya to educate and inspire the Libyan architectural community by increasing student and public awareness of the challenges facing the built environment. This will be achieved by providing a forum for interaction with international leaders, role models, artists, academics and other prominent members of international architectural society.
The lecture series is Architectural Initiative's first organised project in association with Tripoli University's Department of Architecture and Urban Planning, coordinated by Ghada Albayati. They have hosted Cullinan Studio who have been supportive of the initiative since its inception and are the first British Architects to start the Lecture Series. The main sponsors of the lecture were the Libyan architectural practice Allabina Architecture & Engineering Consultancy as well as the RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) who have provided both guidance and financial support. The other sponsors were Libyan Institutes of Architects, the Martyr Square Media, Libya Design, Home and Garden Show and Andalusia.
The programme consisted of a public lecture as well as a lecture to students, followed by a series of workshops and crits with final year students.
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