The idea to decongest the highway in Lebanon by using high speed vessels was brought forward, some 10 years ago, by the collaboration between the Oslo architecture office STUDIOhp and New York based L.E.FT architects.
In 2007, during Studio Beirut, a Dutch/Lebanese workshop held in Beirut on the theme of public space in Lebanon, we got to meet Ole Møystad (STUDIOhp), who presented this idea of connecting the entire Lebanese coast in only 2 hours and a half by water. Creating this common interest could generate a common space, a deap issue in such a segregated country.
We proposed to push the idea further for our Master thesis at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPF-L / ETH-L), with Ole as an external expert. At that point we had to choose a team for the development of our project. Here came Dieter Dietz, our main teacher from whom we learned innumerable things through his conceptual approaches, his sensitivity to such topics and his ability to treat coherently every scale of a building. Also part of this project was the architect Christian Gilot. With his awareness of urbanity and perception, he was of great help when it came to work on relations between things and distances. Finally, Ralph Blattler who was the most present, a great assistant but mostly a devoted architect with a clear vision, helping us sort out between infinite options.
Conceptually, this is how ELHUB was born and developed.
On a more personal and general level, ELHUB embodies and tries to respond to two related frustrations.