Abir Zaatari

Urban Planner, Architect, & Researcher
|Research Coordinator @BeirutUrbanLab
| عبير من عابرة للمدن
Opinions expressed here are my own

[Abir Zaatari @Zaatari_Abir]

We asked professional valuators to valuate a property in Hamra, & received strikingly diff. estimates. Contradictions tht confirm wht our research reveals on 🇱🇧's broken property valuation system
Check out @BeirutUrbanLab's recent publication "Valuations or Speculations" for more

[Beirut Urban Lab @BeirutUrbanLab]

At a time when Lebanon is pledging to move away from its rentier economic model, the governance of land—and how we value it—has never been more urgent.

Our latest report with @landpolicy & @TPILebanon Policy Initiative scrutinizes Lebanon’s land valuation system and offers concrete recommendations for reform.

Explore our findings & policy directions:
https://t.co/QZ5nyGlmSJ

[Beirut Urban Lab @BeirutUrbanLab]

Just Published!

“The Ripples of Housing Financialization: Old Actors, New Practices in Beirut (Lebanon)” has been published in Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space by Mona Fawaz, Abir Zaatari and Soha Mneimneh. Read our analysis of the unfolding of capital in Beirut’s middle-income housing markets- and how it informs contemporary thinking of people, institutions, and cities.

https://t.co/HCJaypmQy9

[Beirut Urban Lab @BeirutUrbanLab]

Join Us for a book talk with Sonia Faleiro (co-editor), in collaboration with Palestine Land Studies Center and the Center for Arts and Humanities at @AUB_Lebanon.

Gaza: The Story of a Genocide

Date and Time: Tuesday November 4 at 6:00 PM

Location: Basile Antoine Meguerdiche Conference Hall, Issam Fares Institute main auditorium, AUB

In conversation with:
Maryam Iqbal, Seteney Shami, Ghassan Abu-Sittah

This event is open to the public
The proceedings of the book will go to UNRWA

More Info: https://t.co/ZY6moCAGBa

[Beirut Urban Lab @BeirutUrbanLab]

Join us for a public lecture by Professor Liza Rose Cirolia, African Center for Cities at the University of Cape Town.

Titled “African New Cities: Speculation and World-Making from Urban Peripheries”, the talk investigates how new cities are reshaping Africa’s Urban landscapes, highlighting the broader insights these experiences offer to global urban debates.

Date: Wednesday, October 29, 2025, 6:00 – 8:00 pm
Location: Architecture Lecture Hall (ALH), AUB

For More information: https://t.co/HNuhqRFgMd

This event is open to the public

[Mona Fawaz @mona_fawaz]

Marking two years of unrelentless killing, false reporting, heartless disregard, double standards, and more. #GazaGenocide

[Beirut Urban Lab @BeirutUrbanLab]

In today's Beirut, only 14% of generator providers follow public guidelines: They registered, installed meters, and they follow the official pricing scheme.

Explore the story map to learn how informal practices shape everyday electricity access in Beirut on the following link: https://t.co/XRINoJSlxh

[Mona Fawaz @mona_fawaz]

#Beirut
Informal generator providers:
86% do not comply by the pricing mechanisms mandated by public authorities… and (spoiler alert), one in four doesn’t even account for any of these mechanisms.
🤷🏽‍♀️

[Beirut Urban Lab @BeirutUrbanLab]

With Beyond the Grid, the Beirut Urban Lab launches a first reading of Municipal Beirut’s Hybrid Energy Infrastructures. Learn more by checking the webpost here: https://t.co/nUI7WK3aPy

And read the storymap on this link: https://t.co/XRINoJRNHJ

[Abir Zaatari @Zaatari_Abir]

Check the story map for data readings on Beirut's Built Environment!

[Beirut Urban Lab @BeirutUrbanLab]

The Beirut Urban Lab has released the updated Built Environment StoryMap, an interactive tool extending our previous mapping of Beirut’s urban transformations all the way to 2024.

Check out maps and indicators for housing, water and electricity and access the storymap on the following link: https://t.co/L4wkHXSrhF

You can explore the database, access the storymap, or download the layers: https://t.co/ACKOi2Dcg4

@MSFEA_AUB @AUB_Lebanon

[Mona Fawaz @mona_fawaz]

So proud and happy to be part of this team of amazing researchers who have managed to keep putting out data on the “war-on-housing” despite all difficulties. Take 2!

[Abir Zaatari @Zaatari_Abir]

@AssaadDagher @mona_fawaz Please use this link
https://t.co/tOrC2fKdLL

[Abir Zaatari @Zaatari_Abir]

The Beirut Built Environment Database is one of those projects that takes a whole village. So lucky to have been part of it since the early days, under great leadership🏘
The new update tracks post-crisis development activity in Beirut.
Check the platform & story map in the link!

[Beirut Urban Lab @BeirutUrbanLab]

The Beirut Urban Lab is releasing the updated Beirut Built Environment Database

BBED is an open, geo-referenced platform that brings together a collection of maps, surveys, & indicators that monitor Beirut’s urban transformations.

You can explore the database, access the storymap, or download the layers: https://t.co/ACKOi2Dcg4

@MSFEA_AUB @AUB_Lebanon

[Abir Zaatari @Zaatari_Abir]

A great edition of City Debates. Worth checking!

[Beirut Urban Lab @BeirutUrbanLab]

The City Debates 21st edition recordings are finally out!

WATCH the sessions from this year’s conference on Collective, Exploratory, and Radical Cartographies. Held in collaboration with the MUPP/MUD programs @MSFEA_AUB, @BeirutUrbanLab, @ifporient, @ItalyinLebanon, and @USJ_online.

This edition engaged with mapping, data visualization, and spatial representation as critical tools in urban research, with a special focus on Palestine as part of AUB’s Second Palestine Week.

Videos ▶️ https://t.co/gPXor7uuOb

[Beirut Urban Lab @BeirutUrbanLab]

Beirut Urban Lab is collaborating with The Aswat Festival on a 3-day mapping workshop led by Monica Basbous, Nov 6–8, 2025, in Bourj Hammoud.

Explore embodied, affective, and critical mapping methods.

Open to all disciplines.

For more, and to download the Call for Participation: https://t.co/F1gCkLG6wg

[Beirut Urban Lab @BeirutUrbanLab]

يطلق مختبر المدن في بيروت النسخة الجديدة لمنصة بيوت هشّة التي توثق العمليات والآليات المؤدّية إلى التداعي السكني في بيروت حاليًا. في هذه النسخة، تقدم المنصة دراسات حالة ومرويّات سكنية إضافية معمّقة باللغتين العربية والإنجليزية.

للمزيد زوروا موقعنا: https://t.co/efHDEdV63n

والمنصة: https://t.co/AEZKEiDIhq

[Beirut Urban Lab @BeirutUrbanLab]

The Beirut Urban Lab is updating Precarious Homes, the platform that documents processes and mechanisms that generate housing precarity in today’s Beirut. This edition includes new housing snapshots in both English and Arabic.

For more visit the website: https://t.co/an64prIzz3

The platform: https://t.co/V1jwoSnhTS

[Mona Fawaz @mona_fawaz]

Reminder 2: What happened here?
https://t.co/J7lVGq6B7N

[Mona Fawaz @mona_fawaz]

Reminder 1: What was supposed to be here?
https://t.co/K8OrEbOAUO

[Mona Fawaz @mona_fawaz]

In Beirut, men campaign on the very sites where they helped derail projects serving the public interest to protect the narrow profits of the strongmen they serve… and yes, hail to the asphalt on election week, even when it brings another nail to the coffin of urban livability.

[Abir Zaatari @Zaatari_Abir]

Coming up next week!! You don't want to miss this one.

[Beirut Urban Lab @BeirutUrbanLab]

City Debates 2025 Detailed Program out now!

Join us and our speakers on April 14–16 at the Architecture Lecture Hall @AUB_Lebanon for an interrogation of critical cartographies and their impact on our world today. The conference coincides with AUB's second Palestine Week and includes several interventions focusing on Palestine.

For more information: https://t.co/WU5Ab7Z7pq