TRASH TURNED TO TREASURE
A Junk World Love Story

The Lebanese entrepreneurial spirit is known throughout the world and is in no one better embodied than 34-year-old Ramy el Khazen. Born in Lebanon, in a family well-known for their history and famous spirit production, he is the 6th generation producer of the quintessential Lebanese spirit arak, and runs the factory producing the family brand, Arak El Rif, founded in 1828.

Though Ramy doesn't have any professional architectural background, designing and architecture have grown as a hobby to become his passion in life. His meticulous character and consistent strive for perfection have pushed him to master this domain where design and conceptualization have always come naturally to him. His new concept, already proved successful in the country, promises to diversify his concept and execute mega projects abroad.

Ramy, who spent his childhood in a factory, has another passion aside from his family's legacy that defined his concept, helping the environment and spreading recycling awareness through his concepts by putting a spotlight on recycling using a different approach, presenting junk as art, creative, one of a kind and something that has value.

Ramy designs and builds relying solely on his personal experiences in life and the way he see things should be done, with no plans in hand but only his vision -without any professional assistance (i.e. architects or engineers).

What Ramy likes to call his Junkworld concepts combine Shipping containers and a country's trash turned into a working piece of art that can be utilized for everything from a restaurant to a hotel. nightclub and other venues. He has done it twice already in Lebanon, for restaurant spaces that or an onlooker would seem like large-scale projects. But for Ramy, it is just the beginning.

The passion and adeptness for mechanics was born early in Ramy, who used to take apart engines from motorbikes and four-wheelers as a 13-year-old to "soup up" his rides. As he grew up surrounded by machines at his manufacturing facility, he learned special skills and ways to find solutions for complex applications. With shipping containers being a part of their business, he has formed a special bond with them. During Lebanon's civil war, Ramy's father made a barrier of six containers on top of each other, effectively covering their house with them. Ramy seems to have inherited his father's creative thinking when it comes to these metal boxes.

"I used to go into the house every day and see the containers. I always knew I was going to do something amazing out of shipping containers someday," says Ramy. His functionalities for containers and recycled junk come to life in an Alice-in-Wonderland-esque way, where the most unexpected objects are used in a way one would never expect. 9400 Arak El Rif bottles hanging from the ceiling. A 1936 chain tractor is used as the front facade of a bar. A rocket grenade launcher is part of a lighting system. Bombshells are turned into lanterns. Caterpillar chains are used for stairs. A garbage collector truck serves as a VIP lounging area with a private balcony. A hanging chandelier, handmade from metal sheets and inspired by an arak distillery pot, reaches with eight spindly arms.

If Lewis Carroll wanted his "Through the Looking-Glass" novel made tangible, Ramy's junk world amalgamation would manifest it perfectly. The objects are surprising, but the effect is mesmerizing. "You look at the stuff and you realize this is not supposed to be here, but it looks amazing. Says Ramy with a smile.

Ramy promises to build venues that will last a lifetime with so much character in them that it will be impossible for anyone to duplicate. Each will be unique according to the craftsmanship and junk he finds in every country and the general feeling he gets from that country while creating the design. His most recent design began with 12 shipping containers and a vision - but no established plan. His style is to work with passion and feeling, while being guided by innate knowledge for the engineering of the structure. Ramy does not work from blueprints, but his gut. His plans are not on paper, but rather on the ground. "This is how I draw my plans," he says as he shows a photo of him arranging pieces of steel in a certain formation. "I just walk in, I sketch with my hands [on the floo I have the first steel structure on the ground, then I go up

Ramy roamed the country to find each piece he needed, and bought whatever he got the feeling for. As with all of his designs, he figured out later how it would fit. Each piece was equally important to him, though some took more work to acquire. In the latest version of The Junk World Concept, Ram spent months looking for a tractor. His epic journey took him the way to Lebanon's border with Palestine, where he finally found what he had been looking for: a 1936 tractor.

Ramy oversaw every aspect of the construction daily, and was fastidiously meticulous as he worked directly alongside his small team every day. Though he is not an architect or engineer, he knows the importance of safety and cleanliness. His philosophy of perfection extended to how he sterilized each piece that went into his magnum opus, which would undergo multiple rounds of hot steam and chemical washings, along with new paint jobs or treatments, before being put into the space.

Incredibly, the work to implement the design only took eight months. In the short time it took to bring the concept to its near-finish, the workers, Ramy, and the surrounding neighborhood became like a family. In the mornings, tenants living in the buildings surrounding the property would wander onto the site with coffee and ask Ramy if he knew what he was going to do that day. Ramy would tell them he didn't know - which was true!

Ramy ignored family and friends who did not believe shipping containers could be turned into something beautiful, who told him, "go work, stop wasting your time in containers." But when they saw his second version and design of the Junk World Concepts finished in mere months, they were blown away.

So was Lebanon's green community. Every year, the country's most innovative and eco-friendly minds come together for the Green Mind Award, an annual program that awards green achievers from organizations, companies and individuals in the Middle East and North Africa region. This year, the judges awarded Ramy El Khazen with the individual award for his unique patented and registered concept.

Though he is staying quiet on when and where exactly his concept will pop up next in Lebanon or abroad, he did say it will be soon. It could be a hotel, a gym, a gallery, or a nightclub. All things are possible...For Ramy, all he needs is his passion and his dreams, and the rest, like the Junk World Concepts, will fall into just the right place.

TEXT BY MELISSA TABEEK