L.E.FT distills politics into design at different scales, using utopian experiments to inform real-world projects from beleaguered Beirut to the turf wars in our own homes.
With the name of their design firm — L.E.FT — Makram el Kadi and Ziad Jamaleddine tip us off to their ideology and offer a partial clue pointing to the location of their first New York City office, on the Lower East Side. L.E.FT’s work also strikes a balance between shouting an agenda and whispering it. “We try to question the role of architecture in contentious geographies,” says el Kadi. “Or at least to reflect on it,” adds Jamaleddine.
The Lebanese partners developed one of their most provocative schemes, Offshore Urbanism, in direct response to the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict. The experimental project imagines evacuation barges that could detach from shore and float out into international waters in the event of another conflict. The barges resemble submarine cities, with dwelling units and parking spaces — like a megastructure turned upside down. On the barges, taboo issues that have been put on the back burner because of political conflict, such as marriage between Palestinians and Lebanese, would be addressed, says el Kadi. But L.E.FT distills politics in everyday designs, too. For example, the partners explored the relationship between husband and wife in the clever placement of the toilet paper holder in their Forsyth Residence in New York. The roll sits in a cutout in the bathroom door and can be refilled from either side.
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