More than ever the ARAB World is losing day after day the best of its natural and cultural heritage due to globalization, wars, instability, and lack of ethics. These factors, among others, are leading inevitably to the degradation of traditional urban settlements, the degeneration of historic cities, displacement of entire populations, and loss of collective memory.

The destruction of Beirut downtown during Lebanon Civil War initiated Samir Nicolas SADDI, architect, and photographer with the urgency to create ARCADE as a tool to document, record, and research the traditional built environment in the Middle East and Africa, focusing on the wealth of sustainable solutions embedded in what Bernard Rudofsky labeled as ”Architecture without Architects”.