N'5 is a project designed by BAD. Built by Associative Data, in collaboration with MARZ. Located in the heart of the Jnah district in Beirut, the mixed-use project of No.5 organizes 15,000 m2 of residential apartments, offices over a two-story F&B and retail plinth in a compact urban form. Nestled in a L-shaped site at a busy traffic junction, the development creates a new high quality public space sheltered from the traffic and a new focal point for the high-density F&B, retail, office and residential environment.
The building volume is formed as an extrusion of the site creating a sharp edge to the chaotic urban fabric around it. Carved out of this solid volume is a contrasting soft public space with a series of terraces and courtyards. The new public space allows maximized exposure of the program at ground level while also maximizing natural daylight and ventilation for the offices and residential apartments. Using computational tools and modeling the massing was studied under various programmatic and environmental parameters to optimize the volume and building footprint.
The buildings pixelated volume also works to enhance the environmental strategy to create a comfortable external public space by allowing controlled wind infiltration and solar radiation. The sculpted ground level takes advantage of the site’s sloping topography, creating a rich new urban public landscape within the development.