Racha Olabi, Yara El Jammal, Joelle Abi Karam & Lyn Zeidan

Design Title

Martyrs' Square

Four architectural designers and Lebanese friends, brought together by a shared desire to reconnect with a place deeply rooted in their identity.
Educated at the Université de Montréal and having recently transitioned into professional practice in Montreal, the competition offered the team an opportunity to step outside the routine of everyday work, rediscover the freedom to experiment, and create together beyond standard professional constraints.
Having never worked on a project in Lebanon, they saw the competition as a meaningful way to engage and reconnect with a place that has always been part of their identity. They chose Martyrs’ Square in the heart of Beirut as their site, a place deeply embedded in Lebanon’s collective memory and history, carrying profound personal significance.
Their proposal reimagines Martyrs’ Square as an inclusive and active public space rooted in the everyday rhythms of Beirut. Defying the exclusionary urbanism of the capital’s post-war reconstruction, the project acts as an urban suture by transforming a former line of division into a dynamic social connector. Its pedestrianized spine threads through the site as an active artery bleeding into the various functionalities of the square, bringing together people, movement, and collective memory.
In reclaiming Martyrs’ Square, the project ultimately bridges past memory with future possibility. It stands as both a personal homecoming for its designers and an invitation to reimagine Beirut through the potential of its civic renewal, revealing the power of architecture to transform urban scars into vibrant spaces for collective life.