Design in Conflict: Lebanese Students Reimagine Design for Life Under War

Design in Conflict is an exhibition that brings together architecture and design students from Lebanon to confront the realities of living under continuous instability. Hosted inside Beirut’s abandoned Burj El Murr skyscraper, the show presents speculative yet deeply practical projects addressing life shaped by war, interruption, and resilience.

Organised by Archifeed alongside product designer Youssef Bassil and design engineer Tark Mahmoud, the exhibition positions design not as an escape from conflict, but as a tool for navigating it.

Design in Conflict Inside Beirut’s Burj El Murr

The choice of venue gives Design in Conflict its symbolic weight. Burj El Murr, a high-rise abandoned mid-construction during the Lebanese civil war, once functioned as a sniper’s nest due to its commanding view over the city. Today, it stands as a reminder of Lebanon’s unresolved history.

By activating the space during the We Design Beirut festival, the exhibition reframes the building from a monument of violence into a site of dialogue, learning, and creative resistance.

Student Projects Responding to Everyday Conflict

Design in Conflict features 58 student projects from nine Lebanese universities, developed through academic courses and refined during a summer bootcamp led by the curatorial team. Rather than focusing on idealised post-war futures, students were encouraged to engage directly with the mechanisms and consequences of conflict.

Among the projects are speculative architectural proposals for contested sites, including Beirut Airport’s unused runway and the silos destroyed in the 2020 port explosion. These works reinterpret damaged infrastructure as layered spaces for memory, education, and adaptation.

Design Solutions for Survival and Care

Many projects in Design in Conflict address challenges faced by civilians in contemporary war zones worldwide. Rhea Bassil’s Sonic Protection Kit offers relief from constant drone noise through sound-absorbing headphones integrated into a soft fabric hood, designed for mass production and humanitarian distribution.

Other projects explore domestic and educational resilience. Deskrest transforms a classroom desk into a bed for emergency shelter use, while Survive, Live, Thrive proposes practical instructions for repurposing everyday objects into survival tools during crises.

These designs emphasise dignity, care, and adaptability rather than spectacle.

Design as a Lens, Not a Solution

According to the exhibition’s curatorial statement, Design in Conflict does not attempt to define what comes after war. Instead, it insists on engaging with what emerges through it. In the Lebanese context, conflict is not an interruption of stability but a recurring condition shaping the built environment and daily life.

By working within this reality, the students present design as a lens for understanding power, vulnerability, and survival — not as a comforting narrative, but as an active, ethical practice.

Written by Otávio Santiago, a designer crafting visual systems that move between the tactile and the digital. His work combines motion, branding, and 3D exploration with a poetic sense of structure.