Bint Jbail is a small town in southern Lebanon. Labeled a Hezbollah stronghold, it was especially hard hit by Israeli air strikes during last summer’s war—more than 2,500 houses were damaged and 800 completely destroyed. But when Howayda Al-Harithy, an associate professor of architecture at the American University of Beirut and a member of its postwar reconstruction unit, arrived shortly after the August 14 cease-fire, she found reason for hope.