17.02.2023
Our Reflections
In Memory, Habib Debs
Habib Debs left us too soon, on February 10th, 2023.
Since the early 1990s, Habib Debs has been involved in nearly every battle to improve urban planning and design in Lebanon (and beyond), its standards, methods, and practices. A champion of cultural heritage protection, a gifted public space designer, and a leading figure in city planning, he will be remembered for his incredible talent, innumerable contributions, deep humanism, and his role as an engaged citizen fighting for a more just and secular country.
10.08.2021
Our Reflections
Launching an Urban Observatory Amidst a Painful and Slow Recovery
One year after the Beirut port blast, we remain in awe at the social mobilization that continues to surround the people in the neighborhoods affected by the explosion. Over 12 months, and amidst devastating, economic, political, and health crises, city-dwellers—organized or not, working side by side with a large array of local and international organizations, are still struggling to repair homes, businesses, schools and hospitals and restore the viability of their city.
28.10.2022
Webinar
Urban Politics in the Arab Region
The Arab Political Science Network (APSN) and The Beirut Urban Lab (BUL) organized a webinar focusing on the latest research and developments in the study of urban politics on October 25th, 2022. The webinar was moderated by the Lab's co-director, Mona Harb, and featured Omar Sirri, affiliated researcher at the University of Toronto, Rafeef Ziadeh, lecturer in politics and public policy at King's College London, and Sarah El-Kazzaz, senior lecturer in comparative politics of the Middle East at SOAS University of London. The invited scholars discussed research focusing on the resilient and changing dynamics and configurations of power in cities and built environments of the Arab region. They also reflected on questions of contestation, representation, and appropriation of urban space among other issues.
