Youth GIRLS REHABILITATION CENTER: From the Mother Wound to Rebirth

Beirut Arab university, Faculty of Architecture, Design & Built Environment, Tripoli Campus

Project idea

The concept behind my graduation project was deeply inspired by the location where it was
chosen: Amioun, El Koura, which supports many traditions yet handles contemporary-related
social issues in moderation. The site is between two important institutions; the commune is
primarily the Red Cross station as well as the Saraya, which has a rather governmental nature, but
both are critical to health, security, and administration in the community. Thus, it clearly demanded
an intervention that creates a bridge between healing by oneself and living a public life.
The core idea revolves around the circle, a shape that, in this context, speaks equally of trauma
and healing, a shape inspired by the symbolic wound of the woman. The circle represents a
universal shape of continuity, wellness, and protection; it becomes a spatial metaphor for trauma
and healing. Grounded into the earth, the round form works harmoniously with nature, causing
soft, nurturing spaces that hold children and young girls. A space becomes an individual's gentle
container throughout recovery, an architectural environment that provides physical and emotional
healing.
The project aims to create an architecture that liberates and nurtures young girls and adolescent
girls to rediscover themselves in a landscape of resilience. The rehabilitation center serves as a
refuge as well as a very self-discovery, reflection, and empowerment landscape in itself. The
therapeutic gardens, soft boundaries, and sanctuaries of light place the project, redefining healing.

Project description

Accommodation lies strongly at the core of this project, its primary function as a rehabilitation
center being a safe and caring living space. The design accommodates 80 young girls divided into
three groups based on age, ensuring assistance to unique needs in care and development:
• 7 to 12 years old
• 12 to 15 years old
• 15 to 18 years old
Each stage is located in a setting that accords with developmental needs, privacy requirements,
and social dynamics. These residential blocks are set up on the natural terrain in three
topographical bands, all of which are in alignment with the gentle slope of the site. The integration
with the landscape offers protection while also serving as a metaphor for the slow process of
growth, healing, and maturation.
The tiered nature of the plan allows for a clear spatial hierarchy, where the younger ones are
embraced at lower and more privately bound zones, while the older move towards the upper and
more open areas, quietly reinforcing a path towards independence and reintegration into society.
The landscape itself also becomes an active participant in the therapeutic process, forming
experiences of safety, movement, and connectivity.
Another main feature of the project is the vocational area for the residents to learn practical skills
and provide creative expression as a part of the healing and reintegration process. This area consists
of eight specialized classrooms according to different crafts or activities inspired by local culture
and community needs. For instance:
• Soap from olive oil
• Painting
• Candle making
• Handicrafts and other traditional/community-rooted skills
Vocational spaces thus will offer therapeutic interaction and self-expression, skills building, and
potential independence training. Design promotes learning by doing in a homely, workshop-like
atmosphere, combining openness with safety and supervision.
At the top of this zone, an exhibition space serves a dual purpose: with indoor and outdoor galleries
at the northern edge of the central circle, the top symbolical and physical point of end of the healing
journey. These exhibition spaces serve both to celebrate the girls' creative achievements and
provide a forum for interaction with the wider community, visibility, and social reintegration.
Education is the third important area of a rehabilitation center, which also takes care of the
academic growth of residents while helping them heal. This academic program is part of daily life,
and learning is organized in a supportive and adaptable context.
Here, every age stage accesses two dedicated classrooms with smaller learning sessions tailored
specifically to their cognitive and emotional development. Apart from the general classrooms, a
shared computer lab is also built to screen learners on digital knowledge, enable self-paced
learning, and provide access to wider educational resources.
The space is designed taking into consideration natural light, views of the therapeutic gardens, and
flexible arrangements of furniture to encourage concentration and comfort. Thus, by having formal
education within the center, the project further ensures continuity and structure, making this phase
of life seem as normal as possible for these youths.
In addition to the residential, vocational, and educational components is the medical and
counseling zone, which engages the top floor of the educational building. This strategic
placement offers privacy and tranquility, allowing residents to be cared for and supported in a
space that feels safe, elevated, and removed from the more active areas of daily life.
This zone includes therapy rooms, psychological counseling offices, and medical clinic to
address both physical and mental health needs. The architecture promotes serenity through soft
lighting, sound insulation, and calming material palettes, creating an environment that encourages
openness and emotional safety.
By integrating therapeutic care within the educational structure, the design emphasizes that
healing and learning go hand in hand. The spatial hierarchy, with counseling spaces positioned
above, reinforces the center’s vision: a journey from grounding and support toward recovery and
self-empowerment.
At the same level as the main entrance, here stands a flexible assembly setting a multipurpose
auditorium, which secures the public and communal identity of the site. Next to the indoor and
outdoor exhibition areas positioned at the base of the central circle, the auditorium is very
important in joining the internal life of a center with the external community.
This auditorium space that could easily accommodate any kind of educational presentation,
creative performance, community event, guest lecturer... It is a space for expression, celebration,
and dialogue, where girls share their voices, talents, and progress within a dignified and supported
environment.
The administration zone engages a strategic high point of the project on a rectilinear structure
lying directly above the main large circular core. The elevated location of the administration
encourages a clear visual and organizational relationship with the whole center; it represents
guidance, order, and protection, watching quietly over the healing process taking place below.
This clear view allows staff to facilitate the function of the center, ensure safe operations, and
communicate effectively across all departments. The linearity of the administration areas stands in
simple contrast with the curves and organic softness of the circular healing space below, providing
a counterpoint of control and care, of structure and emotional flow.

Technical information

Due to the site’s challenging topography, the hybrid structural system balances strength, flexibility,
and environmental integration. The foundation and primary load-bearing elements consist of
reinforced concrete (RC) for durability and stability on such sloping ground.
Designed to manage the changes in elevation occurring naturally on the site, a series of retaining
walls anchors the stepped zones of the accommodation areas and service levels into the landscape.
These walls do more than just fix a structure across the topography; they define programmatic
bands on the site.
Wherever lightness and openness are required, primarily in the cantilever forms and overhead
therapeutic units, a steel structural system is introduced, acting in complete harmony with the
concrete frame. This allows architectural forms that articulate and express span, elevation, and
transition, an idea reinforcing the conceptual journey from containment to liberation.
The integrated steel and concrete also ensure tectonic stability and flexible design, supporting a
wide diversity of spatial experiences while also responding to the physical and emotional needs of
youth.
Passive environmental comfort that focuses on natural shading is one of the key strategies of the
present project. Existing mature trees within the site must be retained and linked into the design in
such a way as to provide naturally changing shade, softening sunlight, cooling outdoor spaces, and
developing together nature and healing.
In addition to greenery, architecture also causes shade. Roof overhang and cantilevered forms, as
well as recessed windows and curved walls, are all positioned such that they help to minimize solar
gains from all sources and at all times, particularly during the peak hours. These also help create
comfort zones, protected spaces for girls to rest and reflect communication with nature in their
own space.
The combination of nature and built systems of shade provides an ambience within which
carefulness become aligned with both emotional and environmental sustainability.