The large majority of building stock in any modern society needs to consist of affordable, social, smart residential units, which means a massive presence of low cost apartments. This is an inescapable attribute of the highly populous and predominantly urban human existence that defines our world. Lebanon, with its very high degree of urbanization and population agglomeration, underprivileged masses and overall young citizenry, is at least as dependent as any developing country on improving and increasing its metropolitan living quality through provision of inexpensive but humane housing. At the peak time of drafting great post-war reconstruction programs, this urgent necessity was recognized in one single key project for creation of urban living spaces – Elyssar. Under the patronage of the mythically enlarged figure of the Phoenician princess and founder of Carthage, Elyssar was initiated as a development project for the capital’s southwestern realm with a preliminary master plan in June
