Mass immigration represents an extremely relevant issue in the contemporary debate.?The whole world is facing the ethic and practical problem of finding possible solutions to manage the arrival of an increasing number of displaced people. The UNHCR's annual report "Global Trends" reports that about 65.3 million people were forced from their homes in 2015. The host spaces generated from such a status of crisis are multiple as well as complex. They are often marginalized?areas that struggle for a better integration inside hosting societies, and exceptional spaces with a common stateless character that make them an anomaly, exception also in legal terms. The spaces of?displacement are conceived to face an emergency and to host people and territory.?The work presented in this book addresses the issue of spaces of displacement focusing the attention on the refugee spaces of Lebanon, particularly on the informal settlements in the region of the Bekaa Valley, where the agricultural land is turning into a space of displacement. The goal of the research is to imagine weak strategies through which to design the wait that these spaces are experiencing and its consequences over time, taking into consideration both the human and the territorial aspects and two different but consequential periods, the settlement and the after- settlement.?The design parameter chosen to develop such a project is the ecology intended as the grade zero from which the project-process could start and evolve, the instrument able to work with time and that resists to it.

Francesca De Ponte
Francesca De Ponte?Teaching assistant at Politecnico di Milano, she?graduated with honors in architecture in April 2017,?presenting, together with her colleague Sara Parrinello??and Ginevra Rapisardi, the thesis "Waiting?Places". Starting from the theoretical framework of?landscape urbanism, her research mainly focuses on?studying alternative ecological strategies for?rethinking the weak spaces of the urban and rural?contexts with a particular attention for social and?territorial dynamics of the Mediterranean area.??

Sara Parrinello
Sara Parrinello?She graduated with honors in architecture at?Politecnico di Milano in April 2017, presenting,?together with her colleagues Francesca De Ponte?and Ginevra Rapisardi, the thesis "Waiting Places".?She has a strong passion for philosophy, history and?policies design. She has always been interested in?the relation between architectural projects and?social dynamics. Her research mainly focuses on?looking for new strategies that could generate new??process at different scale, urban, architectural and?territorial.

Ginevra Rapisardi
Ginevra Rapisardi?She graduated in architecture? at ?Politecnico di?Milano in April 2017, presenting, together with her?colleagues Francesca De Ponte and Sara Parrinello,?the thesis "Waiting Places". The investigation of?refugee spaces and fragile contexts is the main focus?of her research; paying particular attention to the?environment complexity and the social background,?she studies alternative strategies of intervention?using the landscape as a performative tool.?