Oceana Beach Club

The town of Damour, twenty minutes from Beirut, boasts one of the most fertile fields along the coast but suffers from lack of productivity, from haphazard reconstruction following the war, and from the threat of transforming its agricultural heritage into massive touristic development. In alliance with several NGOs and international ecological agencies, the active mayor of the town has initiated an ecotourism project along the coast where a zone of 50 meters would be allowed to transform into ecologically sensitive beach resorts along a boardwalk (the old railroad right of way). Taking the idea of land preservation, the project is formed out of a series of four mounds made of the soil excavated for the pools. The mounds are shaped to contain the pools, define a sequence of movement in the club, and eliminate the view of the chaotic development in the background. All the restaurants and pavilions are made of wood and reiterate the ideas of cut and fill, framing and hiding, at different scales.

Credits

Client: Sunbath
Project Team: Hashim Sarkis, Evy Pappas (Project Coordinator), Anuraj Shah, Alyson Liss, Mark Dwyer
Structural Engineer: Rodolphe Mattar
Project Manager: Raymond Aoun And Asscociates