Writing on the wall

One discussion at the planning stages of any major international project will be whether the architecture should have a universal appeal, or should instead reflect the local culture.

A new campus recently developed in Qatar to provide world-class facilities for the training of professionals in the oil and gas industry is the College of the North Atlantic. The college campus caters for 3000 students, and covers more than 75,000m² in 20 buildings that accommodate teaching spaces, workshops, offices, cafeterias, one large and six smaller auditoria and sports facilities.

Michael Michelides, design architect for principal architect Woods Bagot, says the College Steering Committee, which drove the project, wanted the design to reflect both the country's cultural heritage and a style of architecture that would contribute to an emerging regional, yet distinctly modern, Qatar.

"There was a strong desire for this project to express both the aspirations for a new era in the history of Qatar and also its existing culture," he says.

To achieve this, research for the project focused on the urban heritage of Qatar's capital, Doha, as well as on the rich, distinctive designs of its textile artefacts and Arabic scripts. Much of the source material was found in the city's National Museum.

Ten principal courtyards of varying sizes and character are the keys to the layout of the college campus, providing linking spaces and pedestrian access between the buildings. This element of the design refers to the networks of streets and alleys of the old Doha township and other Middle Eastern villages and towns as they have developed over many hundreds of years. In such villages, collections of buildings were separated by courtyards, and gradually streets and squares emerged, providing circulation between the various compounds.

"We have reinterpreted these road networks to become a random series of walkways that meander through the campus, creating interactions with the built form of the college," says Michelides.

Patterns in textile artefacts and Arabic script were also explored in the architecture and have manifested themselves in the exterior design of the buildings. On the north and south, open pre-cast concrete screens represent three basic modules from an abstraction of Arabic text found in weaving, while textile patterns have generated another series of designs for walls on the east and west sides of the campus.

To take account of the local climate, the layout of the campus is designed to catch breezes from the Gulf of Arabia, and all glazing is protected from direct radiant heat in the summer. Rather than hard surfaces, the landscaping incorporates water, grass and gardens, and utilises shade from buildings to keep courtyards cool and pleasant, even in the hotter months.

Story by: Mary Webb