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Beautiful Leftovers

Part 2 Project 2023
Lara Tariq Zareeni
Zartaj Kamran Khan
Tala Akhal
American University of Sharjah | UAE
Through the artful development of a thick perimeter wall around an existing electrical substation, the Beautiful Leftovers project addresses the complexities of situating urban infrastructure within a residential community. The wall camouflages the power station with a sustainably upcycled architectural feature that enhances the public realm and communal experience in the neighborhood.

The scheme, developed through extensive analog and digital modeling, is fabricated with salvaged steel reinforcing bar and discarded lengths of PVC pipe conduit that are collected on neighboring construction sites. The deep thatching provides space for shade, seating and artificial grasslands that don’t require watering. The design uses the landscape to encourage public interaction with the wall, and controls access to restricted zones of the electrical substation.

Conceptualized as a long-term project, the new façade will infill and thicken as the adjacent community grows. The extended duration of construction enables residents to understand a new relationship between construction and sustainability in the Gulf of Arabia region, where construction is typically rushed and wasteful. In this sense the project proposes a circular process of construction; one in which the final project aggregates slowly over time and is symbiotically linked to the waste ecology of the construction industry.


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2023
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