DESIGN.

Doha, until recently an idyllic pearl fishing village in the Persian Gulf, became wealthy with oil and gas. In its new wealth, Doha is sprawling, so much that constantly new highways have to be built. These highways criss-cross the city and are built for speed, without foot bridges and only a few traffic lights. The focus on the logic of cars and highways is so embedded in the system that there is no working public transport and walkways, if at all present, are crumbling. 

Walkways in Doha

Doha is a premier example for the problems of cities in the developing world in times of globalization, where notions of 'modernity' got so enwrapped in profit interests that architectural sense was one of its first victims. 

The old city center, the only place which had a genuine cultural fabric and working small-scale economy, is being demolished. In the meanwhile, people can go to the souq nearby. It looks ancient, but is merely a few years old, a shopping simulacrum for tourists - an example for, as architecture theorist Khaled Asfour puts it, 'heritage cloning'.

Building activity in Doha

Design always has two sides to it: the one is function, the other appearance. Both are about the best possible answers to a given set of circumstances. Skyscrapers are an answer to a particular set of circumstances: restricted space and a moderate climate, such as it can be found in Chicago or New York, where the first skyscrapers have been built. In places such as Doha, where space is abundant, but the climate is extremely hot, steel and glass skyscrapers make little sense. 

Steel and glass-clad buildings work as high-temperature ovens, with their interior becoming so extremely hot that they need to be cooled down by massive electric air conditioning. They are essentially gigantic ovens with gigantic fridges inside. Consequently, the average energy consumption in the Gulf is massive: every year, for each single built square meter, 440 Kilowatt hours of energy are consumed, at the cost of 66 tonnes of CO2 emissions. An average office space of 500 square meter in the Gulf produces 33 thousand tonnes (33 million kilograms) of CO2 each year, filling two 44-ton trucks (the highest permitted load for trucks in the UK) with CO2 every single day. 

Doha is prototypical not only in the way in which it was dealing with its development, but also in terms of landscape and climate. In 50 to 100 years, one third of our planet will be just like Doha, with a similar arid and extremely hot climate. 

Making sense 

So how could these problems possibly be approached? We set out to answer this within the Design Zone project, initiated by Sheikha Mozah of Qatar. To start, we asked the people about their experiences, what they think works well, and what could be improved. 

After conducting many interviews, we found that people would like to enjoy the outdoors, but shade is lacking. People found that there is nearly no public transport in the country and that transportation - by electric carts, or by boat along the coast - would be needed. They also found that it is hard to meet people, and that there should be more community spaces. 

I suggested two approaches. Firstly, a range of interventions in the city of Doha itself: zero-carbon public transport by solar-electric buses and by solar boats along the coast; accessible, shaded public spaces and well-designed community centers; shaded overpasses for highways cutting through communities; combined walk/cart/bikeways with a system of electric bike/cart stations so that all places in the inner city can be reached without a car. Secondly, I wanted to show with a model project that communities can be built entirely without the predominant 'fossil fuel logic': zero-carbon, walkable, self-sustaining, supporting creative and communal activities. 

In fact, better ways of building are just around the corner. Throughout the centuries, people in Qatar came up with ingenious ways to build houses, using locally available materials to create pleasant, even poetic spaces to live. It was only with the discovery of oil and gas that these were forgotten - see also this section of my keynote at the Icograda Doha Conference in 2009 (PDF, opens in new window). 

Courtyard of an abandoned adobe building in Qatar

In 2008, I invited a group of international architects to come to Doha for a week to work with me on a model for a zero-carbon creative community in Qatar. Ten architects have been asked to submit statements. Only one architecture practice did not convince (Sam Crawford Architects from Australia). The other 9 architects produced statements of such outstanding quality that they received an invitation to come to Doha for a week to work on the model project Design Zone Qatar.

The fundamentals

The invited architects: 

Sachin Anshuman, Orangevoid

Yasuyuki Takano, Takano Design

Marc Frohn, FAR

Charlotte Skene Catling, SCDLP

Gianni Botsford, GBA

Kayvan Karimi, Space Syntax

Ricardo de Ostos, Naja & DeOstos

Endo and Aoi Shuhei, Paramodern

The architecture team was complemented by a team of creative minds: music producer Anders Graae, event manager Jakob Ipland, landscape designer Erik van Lennep, filmmaker Joerg Altekruse, interaction designer Alexandre Tonneau and engineer Paul Downie.   

The brief: Develop the masterplan for a zero-carbon model community. Duration: 7 days in November 2008. As to the location for this prototypical community, the question was simple: Where do people like to be? As expected, this was neither in the traffic-jammed city nor in the middle of the desert, but by the beach. Qatar possesses 350 miles of natural coastline (Dubai, for comparison, has only around 40 miles of natural coastline). Sheikha Mozah then suggested a beach site to the north of Doha. 

The development process was kick-started by insights by Kayvan Karimi of Space Syntax, who laid out the basics of a possible masterplan. Gianni Botsford from GBA Architects presented his studies on light and shading in the context of masterplanning.

Gianni Botsford, study on shading depending on building heights

Another important input came from Yasuyuki Takano. He presented extensive studies on native design solutions such as construction methods with adobe bricks and the climate-controlling properties of wind towers:

Yasuyuki Takano, studies on wind towers and native structures

To concentrate the efforts of the architects on one common goal, I had a large canvas with the proposed building site printed out. This 'shared space' proved to be an invaluable tool of collaboration, as ideas for the masterplan could be modelled physically and tried out right on the canvas (see my article here and an image gallery of the shared space process on sharedspace.mariogagliardi.com.)

The core element of the proposal is a solar tower to produce the required energy. Solar towers work by concentrating the heat of the sun on one point on top of the tower, an ideal source of energy in regions with nearly 100 percent sunshine year round.  

 

Mario Gagliardi, solar tower design 

The solar tower powers a system of virtuous ecological cycles containing saltwater greenhouses, treatment systems, wetlands, biodigesters and a geothermal PCM cooling labyrinth, providing everything a community needs: electricity, air conditioning, drinking water and cooking gas. 

 

The greenhouse, designed by Gianni Botsford (below), provides fresh fruits and vegetables all year.



Combustion engine cars won't disappear right away. In the meanwhile, they have to be parked. Instead of miles of unsightly car parks, Gianni Botsford's car park (below) is hidden under a gentle hill which doubles as a structure to transport sweet water to the farmland on its surface.
 

A community is characterized through its activities. Green spaces allow for small-scale markets, concerts and open-air cultural activities during the evening hours, providing ample opportunities to be creative and to communicate. 

Transport is by foot or through a system of e-bike/e-cart stations:

 

Wind brings cooling, but also dust from the desert. Wind fences break the wind so that sand particles drop, while small individual wind turbines add to the energy produced by the solar tower.

Masterplans always suffer from their own fixations. To avoid the predeterminacy of usual developments, Marc Frohn created a smart modular system of built and unbuilt spaces. Inhabitants can design their own houses with zones of shading, lightwells and courtyards.



The masterplan layout (below) was mathematically modeled by Marc Frohn to ensue that despite a high building density, each building block has an unobstructed view - either onto a plaza, a green strip, or the surrounding.

 

Designing inspiration 

Atmosphere -something largely forgotten in architecture- comes about by light and shadow, sights and sounds, textures and impressions. Not concrete, steel and glass, which have to be imported at high cost, but adobe should be the material of choice in places such as Qatar: Abundant locally, it offers richly structured surfaces and excellent climatic properties.



The design for adobe buildings below, inspired by natural formations found by the beach, is by myself:



In the impression below, Marc Frohn created a casual creative space, characterized by adobe surfaces, perforated walls and textiles freely flowing in the wind, evoking the poetry of Bedouin tents:



Gianni Botsford created a similar scene in a casual shaded plaza between buildings. His materials are fabric, structured brick and adobe surfaces.



Charlotte Skene Catling created a magical atmosphere inspired by Arabian history:

Ricardo De Ostos created an elegant structure for living on water. This is not an expensive and environmentally intrusive artificial island as they have become common in the area, but light spaces sublimely floating on water, connected to the beach by means of fragile bridges.

Shuhei Endo created intriguing layouts inspired by shells found on the beach:

 

All together now

The collaborative model for Design Zone Qatar, the final result of one week of work:

The vision for the Design Zone project is to be a pedestrian environment with e-bike/cart stations throughout. The main street, flanked by the design center and community exhibition spaces, starts at the underground car park and goes through to the pier, where the solar ferry from Doha arrives. The street crossing the main street connects to the village next to the site. Green strips, following the wind direction, provide for community space, while narrow, open greywater channels and pools provide for evaporation cooling. Surrounding the solar tower at the back of the site is farmland, made possible by charcoal-enhanced soil which is produced as part of the zero-carbon energy system in the biodigester.