2024

Client/School: Summer Camp 2024, Darat Al Funun

Location: Jordan

Collaborations: Wesam Al Asali, Nadi Abusaada

Participants: Khdr Fanour, Abu Yousef, Abu Mahmoud

Shadd “Meaning Tensioned”) is a stone bench that celebrates the act of making as a form of memory. Installed at Darat Al Funun during the Summer Academy 2024’s course on Materiality and Immateriality of Stone Use in Architecture. It is crafted from Local Aljoun Stone.

The Design of the tripod bench features slits within the stone voussoirs, which served as channels for tension cords used to join each stone together. This low-tech, localized, and temporary post-tensioning method minimized the need for formwork during the construction of the arched bench. Once the cords were removed, the slits remained as scars-traces of the process that shaped the bench.