• Ali Mohammed T. Al-Ghanim Clinic will compete in the Completed Buildings Health category while Qatar Courthouse will compete in the Future Project Competition category.
• The design firm was the WAF Award 2014 winner in the Completed Buildings Religion category with “La Ascensión del Señor” Church, in Seville, Spain.

​Madrid, 29th June 2015. Two projects developed by AGi architects, an international design firm led by architects Joaquin Perez-Goicoechea and Nasser Abulhasan, have been shortlisted by the World Architecture Festival to compete for WAF awards 2015 in their appropriate categories.

One of the selected projects is Ali Mohammed T. Al-Ghanim Clinic, recently opened in Kuwait, which will compete for a WAF award in the Completed Buildings Health category at this year’s edition. This work won the 2013 WAF award in the Future Project Health category.

The other, Qatar Courthouse competition entry, submitted by AGi architects to the restricted competition organized by the Qatar Government and awarded second prize, will compete in the Future Project Competition category.

AGi architects, an international design firm based in Spain and Kuwait, will present their projects to a panel of WAF judges between the 4th and 5th of November at the Festival in Singapore for the fourth time. The winners of each category  are put forward to compete for the coveted World Building or Future Project of the Year award, presided over by the festival’s ‘super-jury’, with the presentation of the award being the culmination of WAF 2014 on Friday, 6 November.

These two projects, along with the rest of WAF shortlisted works, will be exhibited in London from 24 to 27 of June during the London Festival of Architecture.

According to Joaquín Pérez-Goicoechea, partner and co-founder of the firm and WAF Awards’ Judge at this edition, in the Completed Building Religion and Future Projects Culture categories, “we are excited to be able to defend both projects to the jury in their respective categories and bring all attendees a sample of our work."

Ali Mohammed T. Al-Ghanim Clinic

Ali Mohammed T. Al-Ghanim Clinic by AGi architects stands as a pioneer in the healthcare sector, where challenging issues such as privacy and security are addressed using a new model, where courtyards attached to the façade are the driving element behind this unique typology. 

The program occupies the entirety of the site, and from afar the building is viewed as a monolithic element solidifying its ground and creating a high walled fortress protecting from vandalism and maximizing privacy. The courtyards are carved into the building, allowing for natural light into all the clinics. The concept of the façade generating light, views and ventilation is reversed; and the courtyards are brought inwards from the perimeter creating further privacy. Examination rooms have been located towards the closed outer façade and opened to the interior courtyards in which common space flows.

A contemporary mesh that connects to the cultural identity of end users was created. An anodized and perforated metal sheet allows sufficient light to enter, constructing a veiled threshold in between exterior and internal courtyards.

Upon entering the clinic, a colorful ceramic mosaic welcomes patients. This range of colors will go with visitors during their stay at the clinic, identifying counters of each medical specialty with different colors included in the mosaic.

Due to the density and variety of the program presented in this clinic, the spaces are sectioned off into multiple self-sufficient departments, which can operate independently from one another. Internal circulation is organized in a fluid way, conceiving space as a succession of linked rooms and public areas, avoiding as much as possible the typical corridor scheme of hospital typology.

Qatar Courthouse competition entry

Order is one of the core principles in which the AGi architects’ proposal for this institutional building is based. Order as synonymous with structure, law and justice. The building is designed on two basic grids that are site driven, one linking it to its immediate context and the second to the larger context of Doha. These grids create stunning structural and spatial possibilities that make the building stand out visually so that people can see their ideals reflected in built form -structure, order, transparency, ambition- all of which are the ideals of Qatar’s growing society. 

The project brief contained a dense program that would occupy only 40% of the site, which would yield a type of vertical structure. This verticality however in the context of modern day Doha does not read as institutional. We sought to expand the ground plane across the entirety of the site, creating a public plaza and in doing so altering the proportion of the building. Floating above the plaza is the main structure carrying the central courtrooms, signifying that the law is above everyone. These subtle gestures ensure that the plaza act as a threshold between society at large and the justice system, making the Qatar Courthouse an open and welcoming building, rather than an ominous, insular one.