Responding to Beirut Design Week’s theme ‘Is Design a Need’, the practice was inspired to think not of the future, by of the past. The aesthetics of the Ottoman era - their scale, elegance and craftsmanship - permeate the consciousness of the Lebanese people.

Throughout Beirut Design Week, AKK Architects presented Handle with Care, an exhibition on the ground floor of the nineteenth-century mansion on Rue Gouraud, detailing the methodology of the project’s design and renovation.

In addition to survey drawings, photos, models, and some of materials and techniques used in the past, there was a special film presentation. Annabel Karim Kassar attended a round-table discussion about the project and its wider historical and cultural context. 

The exhibition was lit with Splashing Lights by CAI Light, and consisted of three elements:

CAPTURE

In this part of the exhibition, two different perspectives guided visitors around the space and elicited an emotional sense of the building - one from photographer Colombe Clier, and the other from the film director Florence Strauss. 

WORK

AKK Architects shared the first reconnaissance of renovation work in progress: renovation diagrams, survey diagrams, digital photogrammetry documents, studies on reconstruction, and architectural details

SHARE

An auditorium displaying models and films of AKK's most representative work and hosting Q&As and round-table discussions. Lebanese films with relevant architectural footage such as Houroub Saghira by Maroun Baghdadi were also shown.