How can designers across the wide spectrum of the creative industry channel ideas and skills to model objects, tools and structures that address blind spots, shortages and problems within the urban experience? And, in what ways can they collaborate with other stakeholders to face systemic and supplemental challenges? The seventh edition of the Beirut Design Week, an initiative of the non-profit organization MENA Design Research Center, proposes to answer these questions by adopting a participatory approach. Designers, alongside activists, writers, educators, and students were invited to an Open House event in February in order to discover the theme “Design and the City: ____________” and the possibilities it opens up to deal with design for a new social configuration that fulfills people’s aspirations and perceptions of good living, equal representation, and social inclusion. The largest growing design festival in the Middle East & North Africa, held between 22 and 29 June, is conceived to showcase Lebanese design and promote creative exchange with regional and international design communities. It features a wide spectrum of design practices, from architecture to furniture and lighting, fashion, tech, and graphic design. The theme urges designers to deal with the notion of design as an active agent of social change in ways that express the needs, desires and dreams of the city’s inhabitants. Designers are invited to consider the transformative role of their projects in every aspect of city life, from public spaces to the smallest detail in the interiors of homes, offices and recreation spaces, and to bring forward their own visions of how their practices can contribute to good governance, social inclusion and environmental justice. Ghassan Salameh, the newly appointed Director said: “Growing up in a city of great contradictions can sometimes expose us to insecurities which, if viewed through the lens of opportunity, can lead to change. Beirut has always been referred to at the city of creative export, and during the past couple of years, Beirut Design Week has transformed the Lebanese capital into a regional epicentre for design, thus, contributing in the growth of design and making the community. Today, the challenge is different. As the design is changing to become a more accessible and cross-disciplinary tool, our job is to create a more sustainable platform that meets this change.”
