Exhibition – Surveying Brummana

The Department of Architecture and Graphic Design at the American University of Beirut & the Municipality of Brummana cordially invite you to an exhibition of students’ works:

SURVEYING BRUMMANA

Monday September 7, 2009 at 15h00

At the Meeting House
Main Entrance, Brummana High School

Program:

Day 1: Monday 07/09/09
15h00: Welcoming note
Dr. Walid Khoury, Brummana High School principal
15h15-15h40: Overview of Brummana’s evolution
Naji Assi and Walid Bakhos (ARCH241 instructors – AUB)
15h40-16h15: Presentation of case studies
ARCH241 students
16h15-16h35: Typologies of surveyed houses
Antoine Fischfisch (ARCH241 instructor – AUB)
16h35-16h50: Open debate (Q&A)
16h50-18h00: Exhibition

Day 2: Tuesday 08/09/09
10h00-18h00: Open exhibition
16h00-18h00: Walking tour of the surveyed neighbourhood

Day 3: Wednesday 09/09/09
10h00-18h00: Open exhibition

SurveyingBrummana

1

World’s largest Kebbe plate

lebanese-women-cut-the-biggest-kebbe-dish

The small town of Ehden in north Lebanon gained an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records on Saturday for producing the largest ever kebbe — a dish of minced meat and cracked wheat.

To create the giant circular 20-square-metre (215-square-foot) kebbe they had to mix 120 kilos of mince, 80 litres of olive oil, 80 kilos of cracked wheat, five kilos of salt and a mere kilo of pepper.

Via AFP

My favorite restaurant in Ehden is “Al-Ferdaws”, they make the best Kebbe there! Although it’s full of fat and cholesterol, but very tasty! 😀

What’s next? World’s longest Markouk & Labneh sandwich in Chtoura?

6

A letter to all Lebanese people

A fellow blogger and photographer (Antoine Khater) uploaded a photo of La Marina Dbayeh yesterday showing how dirty the sea shore is there!

He accompanied the photo with the following message:

I was today at Marina Dbayeh a beautiful spot of Lebanon where I take a lot of my pictures.

Look at it, come one this is what we are ? this is our civilization ? Trash everywhere I can’t believe it!

I took my children with me hoping they will get some good time on the beach. I didn’t even let them move I was so afraid for them.

This is simply not acceptable something should be done.

Check the photo below, you can’t but agree with him! I hope his message reaches any of our officials!

Antoine Khater - A letter to all Lebanese people La Marina on a Summer day
Click to enlarge

5

Toastmasters Lebanon

Toastmasters International is a nonprofit educational organization that operates clubs worldwide for the purpose of helping members improve their communication, public speaking and leadership skills. Through its thousands of member clubs, Toastmasters International offers a program of communication and leadership projects designed to help men and women learn the arts of speaking, listening, and thinking.

There are actually two toastmasters clubs in Lebanon, one is in Beirut and the other in Tripoli. And I got introduced to Toastmasters Lebanon a while ago via Nour’s blog “Sunken Treasure 6”. Nour is a member of Tripoli’s club and she posts frequent updates on her blog about what goes on in the meetings and sometimes shares with the tables topics that she’s going to be speaking about.

Per my readings of her blog posts, Toastmasters evaluation system helps the individuals identify the weaknesses in their communication skills and of course work on improving them. One thing I have been wondering about though is when do members decide that they got enough practice and no longer need what Toastmasters offers and thus choose to just stop attending. I think Nour can answer this by commenting on the post!

Anyway, you can get to know more about Toastmaster Tripoli through the below reportage by Mounzer Al-Merehbi which was aired on TeleLiban few days ago.

13

Save Kfardebian natural bridge

Faqra bridge

I admit I’m very late on posting this! Il 2ossa w ma fiya, someone is planning to build a cafe on our natural bridge of Kfardebian, which will result in “ruining” this naturally made landmark. What we can do is to show the media that we oppose this project and want to preserve that landmark by gathering tomorrow 9:00AM at the natural bridge.

Below is more details from Blogging Beirut about the schedule.

Our Natural Bridge of Kfardebian-Faqra is in extreme danger. The danger is that of urbanization, of a human kind.

The owner of the land close to the bridge has decided to build an amphitheater and cafe starting from the very edge of the bridge!

LAW 434 – Lists Lebanon’s Natural bridge of Kfardebiene-Faqra as the 8th great natural site and wealth of the Republic of Lebanon.

The law also states that this site is protected under a radius of 100m from any type of building or land adjustment. The center of the radius stems from the center of the bridge.

The law also states that for an additional 50 m, no building or activity of any type can take place, that will harm the identity and character of the site.

The land owner already built 9 steps and a concrete wall several meters wide within the first protected radius and has illegally bought the road that connects the main road to the bridge from the municipality of Kfardebien.

On August 8th 2009, a rally to voice our concerns to the media and protect our heritage from destruction.

We will conduct a hike from the Roman Ruins of Kfardebiene-Faqra to the Natural Bridge starting at 9am.

Join us at the ruins at 9am and hike with us to the bridge.

At 10:30 AM the media will cover our event with a press release to help communicate to the Lebanese public the dangers of these circumstances.

We will afterward s enjoy a picnic at the site and listen to a great Musician playing the Oud.

Please help support and protect our national heritage.

Contact Info:

E-mail: savethebridge [at) bloggingbeirut (dot] com

2

Latest photography

Here are three of the last photos I took in the summer.

As you may know, summer is the weddings season in Lebanon, and so the two first photos are from a wedding a week ago.

Fireworks

Blowing Fire

This one was taken early in July from a building in the Sayfi area.

Beirut Downtown

3

Maya Zankoul’s Amalgam Book Signing

maya-zankoul

Earlier in May I introduced to you Maya’s Amalgam blog authored by Maya Zankoul, a very interesting blog that got exposure from the Future TV and Al-Horra, in addition to getting an interview with NOW Lebanon.

Over the past few weeks we were following the news of Maya preparing a book combining her posts, so it’s going to be her blog on papers! And last week she announced that the book signing will be on August 12 and will take at the Art Lounge. It’s a unique blogging experience I think, and I wish her all the best!

This Amalgam consists in sketches written and illustrated by the Lebanese graphic designer Maya Zankoul (DOB 30/06/1986). Those sketches represent many situations that everyone of us might face in their daily lives, addressing many critics to some of the society’s ugly habits. Everyone of you can actually find himself or recognize a situation that he or she might have encountered in their daily routines.

From the book signing page on the Art Lounge website.

For more details on the event you may visit any of the following links:

“Book signing – Maya Zankoul’s Amalgam” Facebook event

Book signing page on the Art Lounge website.

Congratulations Maya! 🙂

5

Ziad El-Rahbani – Mni7a Photos

Words really do not do justice to the performance of Ziad El-Rahbani and his musicians in “Mni7a”, he was awesome as usual.

ziad-rahbani-mniha

ziad-rahbani-mniha-2

ziad-rahbani-mniha-3

ziad-rahbani-mniha-4

Ghassan El-Rahbani was also there wearing this funny T-Shirt.

ziad-rahbani-mniha-5

7

Powered by WordPress. Designed by WooThemes