Metamorphosis of the landfill: Turning Garbage Dumps Into Proactive Parks

Personal Info

Name: Mohamad Alamin Younis

Nationality: Lebanese

Institution / Company: AZM University

Instagram: @Archi.Collage

LinkedIn: Mohamed Younes

-HONOURABLE MENTION of Non Architecture Award Competition | Category: Urban

Most cities around the globe follow a linear model in their operation: a flow of input/supply- be it energy, water, people, food, vehicles, and material – is processed and consumed resulting into an output flow of sewage, garbage, waste, and pollution. Such an unsustainable operation necessitates that every city designates a “backyard” to dispose of its output on a site that is out of its sight! The city of Tripoli is of no exception. Located at the delta of the polluted city river, this backyard is composed of a 60,000 m2 garbage landfill with a volume of 3,000,000 m3, a centralized sewage treatment plant, a wholesale vegetable market, and a municipal slaughterhouse. Today, Tripoli is forced not only to find a solution for the produced pollution and serious health damaging environment affecting the whole city, but to respond to pressures of population and urban growth by “unlocking” the surrounding remaining 5% of the city undeveloped vacant area and regaining a vital access of the public to an important natural asset of the waterfront. 

To break the balance within a system that prevailed over forty years, the project maps the network of agents to lead to a metamorphosis of the systems of relations across phases of time. Design impetuses are spatial, environmental, and economic. The project proposes an outline of an architectural intervention that operates at the level of the city inducing awareness and forming an agent of positive change. People will therefore adapt to a new form of sustainable learning.

Project Type:

The project’s program is divided into 2 parts: The proposed “Solid Waste Management Equipment Facilities” in synchronization with the “Visitor Center”. The former includes an upgraded sorting plant, a modified recycling plant, composting plant, brick manufacturing plant, LFG treatment plant, power cranes, power plant, vertical farming, smoke exhaust, filters, water tanks, waste pit, research center, awareness center, and a main administration. The later is composed by the visitor’s path which connects all the machinery with the restaurant, passing by the landfill green park.

Jury Comments

– Wenchi Yang

This project stands out by transforming the unpleasant urban infrastructure, a landfill, into a multi-functional destination. Through re-thinking the traditional material flows within our society, this proposal aims at creating a gesture that illustrates a more sustainable model.