Beirut Urban Observatory

The Beirut Urban Lab launched the Beirut Urban Observatory in August 2021, one year after the Port Blast. As a platform of shared geolocalized data, the Observatory builds on the Beirut Built Environment Database (BBED). It aims at facilitating coordination among multiple stakeholders, producing and disseminating maps and visual data, informing city dwellers and key actors about ongoing repair and recovery processes, and supporting an integrated and inclusive framework of urban recovery. The Beirut Urban Observatory is an initiative that engages multiple actors (INGOs, NGOs, universities, professionals, think tanks, research centers, activists and others).

The Observatory currently features six main components: (i) damage assessments conducted in the aftermath of the blast by the Order of Engineers and Architects (OEA); (ii) a baseline data set, synthesizing several layers from the BBED featuring key urban trends in the pre-blast city; (iii) an advocacy project that seeks to initiate a green path in lieu of the planned Fouad Boutros highway (Al-Masar Al-Akhdar), in continuity of the activists’ campaign to stop its construction; (iv) an overview of open spaces and community-based projects in the neighborhoods affected by the blast (see Map 2); (v) a socio-economic assessment of Karantina that is informing a participatory planning intervention in the neighborhood’s open spaces (see Map 3); and (vi) indicators of return to life in Gemmayzeh, Mar Mikhail and Hikmeh, focusing on local economy and status of repair and inhabitation (see Map 1).