Excerpts from a US army combat studies paper 2004, describing the Middle-Eastern city “model” to be used in military operations .
It’s a strange text in many ways, but especially if you think about the otherness aspects. This sounds more like someone explaining about the features of traditional life on an alien planet.
Interesting insight: get to know more about historical and socio-political realities of islamic cities in general, and Tehran in particular in order to shed light on today’s way of domestic building in Tehran.
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A Terrifying, Fascinating Timelapse of 30 Years of Human Impact on Earth
you can zoom in on Lebanon and Beirut to see how concrete has overflow the sea and how fast urban growth happened in only 30 years.
Wadi Al-Salaam: The Largest Cemetery in The World via Amusing Planet
Wadi us-Salaam, which literally means the Valley of Peace, is an Islamic cemetery located in the holy city of Najaf, Iraq. The cemetery covers an area of 1485.5 acres and contains millions of bodies, making it one of the strongest contender for the title of the largest graveyard on earth. Najaf itself is one of Iraq’s biggest cities, with a population of nearly 600,000. But the adjoining city of the dead holds the remains of millions, stretching for up to 10km along the valley. Wadi Al-Salam cemetery is also the only cemetery in the world where the process of burial is still continuing to day since more than 1,400 years.
“Reconstructing a camp of 27,000 refugees which was 95% destroyed during the 2007 war involved a planning effort with the entire community, followed by a series of eight construction phases. Limited land and the exigency of recreating physical and social fabrics were primary considerations. Established in 1948, the camp followed the extended-family pattern and building typology of the refugees’ villages. In a layout where roads provided light and ventilation, the goal was to increase non-built areas from 11% to 35%. It was achieved by giving each building an independent structural system allowing for vertical expansion up to four floors on a reduced footprint.”
PICTURES HERE
Interactive political and road map of the Middle East, including Lebanon and other 20 countries.
This was just submitted- Looks nice!
Going Off-track: Rayak Train Station
After a day at the AUB farm (AREC DAY), a few friends and I took a detour to the Rayak Train Station, located in the Bekaa Valley past the Rayak Air Base. Rayak (pronounced Riya’) is home to one of…The caretaker on site there told us that a permission slip from Mar Mikhael in Beirut was needed to access the grounds but we pleaded and he allowed us to roam around a bit while advising us not to enter any of the buildings because it was dangerous due to the rain. When we asked him why the supposed project for a Rayak Train Station Museum seemed to be put on hold, he seemed quite discouraged. The way he put it was, the project, though ambitious and worthy, needs financing and the people in charge of our country aren’t willing to fork it over for something that isn’t seen as a priority. It seems that if this project were to ever see the light of day, it would need some wealthy private investors. It is sad that our country does not seem concerned with the preservation of such sites – remnants of our rich history and grounds related to our past. If there are no plans of renovation or innovation when it comes to public transportation, we should at least cherish the graveyards of days when we did have such machinery running along our coast.
