Khoury Levit Fong’s project for a multi-media centre in downtown Beirut fashions anew familiar forms – the arched opening of Lebanese vernacular architecture and the amphitheatres of antiquity – are recast and rethought as thin shell concrete constructions of compressive tensile surfaces. 

A public domain is shaped through the combination of a great vaulted passage and an amphitheatre rooftop.  The two great figured spaces are linked –choreographing a mix of shaded and sunlit spaces, formal and informal spaces, and spaces carved from below and above to produce a spectacular theatre of public life.

Credits:
Principals-in-charge: Rodolphe el-Khoury, Robert Levit, Steven Fong
Team : Mike Fung (project coordinator), James Dixon, Sando Thordarson, Rui Zhou, Renee Leung, Bhanu Sharma

http://www.architizer.com/en_us/projects/view/liwan-bayrut/9548/