Al Khor Beach Development (Un-Built)
Al Khor Beach Development Design (Un-Built)
Year: 2006
Design Competition :
Awarded 2nd runner-up
Region: QATAR
Concept:
The project commenced by examining the history of the city in order to expose latent clues that might suggest possible directions for its future.
Following thus, we tested endless scenarios about the types of experiences with which residents would engage while travelling through the community. Journeying through the community streets and walkways became the logical instrument through which we could test these results.
The roads were then conceptualised as arteries along which both motorists and pedestrians could participate in “chance encounters”. In carrying this out, a focal point has been implied in the development. A main street corridor and a concentric commercial office activity zone support this. But the development is, in fact, supported by multiple centres, which fluctuates in usage over time. These “centres” have been strategically placed to afford both residents and visitors opportunities to assign their own level of importance to those activities. Like the expanding diversity of Al Khor’s population, the streets themselves also deviate from the otherwise rigid center of the development to form multiple and varied meandering roadways. These road networks allow for motorists (residents/visitors) to chart their own routes and therefore, their own experiences.
The development was first conceived as a self-organising landscape, a landscape/beach development that affords multiple possibilities.