The talk investigates informal football fields and playgrounds in Beirut formed by neighbourhood initiatives and communal efforts. By focusing on the field of Mar Elias Palestinian Camp, Public Works Studio will show how acquiring spaces for play is a daily exercise of resistance: youth commit numerous acts of transgression and appropriation in an effort to safeguard leftover spaces of play. These actions are an invitation to see urban spaces - of the camp and the city at large - through the lens of playful practices and challenges the very conception of the public domain.

Public Works is a multidisciplinary research and design studio that engages critically and creatively with a number of urban and public issues. The studio initiates research projects that study, shape and implement counter-strategies to urban planning and policy-making in Lebanon. It also offers commissioned professional services in graphic design, architecture, development planning and consultancy within a communal work environment.

Language: Arabic