Landscape In Crisis

"Landscape in Crisis" has been the guiding theme of the Master’s in Landscape Architecture and Environment (MAPE) leaded by a team of professors at the Lebanese University – Faculty of Fine Arts and Architecture – over the past five years. In a country gripped by overlapping environmental, political, and socio-economic crisis, Lebanon’s landscapes—built and natural— is continuously exposed to fragmentation, decay, and transformation. From neglected interstitial spaces to post-blast ruins, from informal cemeteries for refugees to unstable border territories, our landscapes tell the story of a nation in ongoing trauma—and of the urgent need to rethink spatial justice and recovery.
Five student projects reflect this condition across the territory. In the north, Carole Akkari reclaims El Mina’s interstitial voids, transforming neglected urban fragments into spaces of ecological and social value. In Beirut, Laura Matar and Elia Imad confront the aftermath of the 2020 port explosion, mapping destruction and proposing resilient recovery strategies. Also in Beirut, Jean Bernard Cherfane explores the hidden layers of mourning through a transnational cemetery for Syrian refugees in Nabaa, Bourj Hammoud. In the south, Abir Saifi’s project on the Southern Lebanese borderscape reveals a fragile terrain shaped by memory, trauma, and resistance.
Each project positions the landscape not as a passive backdrop but as an active agent of healing, remembrance, and transformation. Together, they embody MAPE’s vision of landscape as a critical tool for inquiry, justice, and socio-environmental repair in crisis-affected territories.