Karim Najjar

American University of Beirut | AUB · Department of Architecture and Design

The displacement of Syrian refugees has been described as one of the largest refugee crises since World War II. Syria’s bordering countries - Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey - have hosted over 5.3 million (registered) refugees. Not only have Syrians lost their homes and livelihoods, they are often traumatized by the catastrophic events that they experie...

IRIS is an attempt at resisting the expropriation of Beirut's open coastline returning the sea back to the fishermen and the local habitants of the Ras Beirut district. Through architecture, it materializes the threshold condition between two very distinct, yet concomitant entities: the dense city and the open sea. Waves transform the kinematic str...

The paper discusses research that concerns itself with design explorations of high performance structural and climatic systems. It also examines their efficient and low cost application techniques in refugee facilities. Initially, the paper presents a survey of the current conditions of refugee schools in Lebanon. The survey highlights the need for...

Engineering and architecture is aimed at improving the life of humans by designing and building products and services to the needs of civilizations. In real life settings, designing and building a product/service is a multidisciplinary event that involves the collaboration of a variety of specialists from different backgrounds. Accordingly, student...

The paper discusses the method of utilizing extruded aluminium profiles from the ship building industries to assemble double curved façade and roof structures, how they are translated into built form regarding material behaviour and the dynamic process of construction. The paper discusses the opportunities and constraints of transferring technologi...