Archinect - News

Herzog & de Meuron update plans for the Lusail Museum in Qatar

2024-02-15T11:54:00-05:00

Herzog & de Meuron’s plans for a new museum in Qatar have been updated with new renderings and a virtual flythrough animation showcasing what in the future will be a world-leading destination for scholars of Orientalist art and culture.

The forthcoming Lusail Museum in Doha is conceived of as a “vertically layered souk, or miniature city contained within a single building.” Its design features an intersection of three spherical forms along whose tangents a crescent-shaped internal street is created as a connector between the central lobby and other public functions of the building, including a library, auditorium, shop, café, and prayer hall.

Image: © Herzog & de Meuron. Courtesy Qatar Museums.

The building addresses its coastal site with a sand-like exterior finish, appearing as though it were a natural landform. A sculptural polished plaster stair serves as the entrance to the building. Inside, four galleries are designed to replicate domed spaces at the Palace of Topkapi in Istanb...

Alejandro Aravena previews ELEMENTAL's massive Qatar Art Mill project in Doha

2022-12-27T18:00:00-05:00

“The aim is for the building to last, and to do that it needs to be suited to the context,” he says. “But we also want the visitor to feel reflected and interpreted by this building. I want to capture this society’s sensibility and sense of pride. This will be a calm building.”

The Art Mill Museum project represents 21-year-old ELEMENTAL’s first-ever museum commission and will be joined by designs from Herzog & de Meuron and OMA upon its completion towards the end of the decade. Aravena said he wants to “create something reversible,” looking to the existing silo structures as “clues for how to proceed” that can ultimately be altered by subsequent generations of designers, adding, “What works today for a museum might not work in the future.”

“We came in with no bias about museum architecture, and no real knowledge of the region,” he added (although he mentioned his experience designing with seismic and climatic considerations in his native country as informing the nearly one-million-square-foot design.)

Revisit Archinect's 2019 interview: The War on Cliché; A Conversation with Alejandro Aravena

“Much as we continue to pursue projects around housing and community and slum upgrading, we also like to tackle these big projects, to keep our design tools sharpen...

OMA and Buro Happold reveal new video of modular hospital prototype

2022-04-12T09:00:00-04:00

One of the most promising recent healthcare infrastructure concepts has engendered an offshoot project that looks to expand on its original framework design.

As a product of the research done for their collaboration on the Al Daayan Health District Master Plan in Doha, OMA and Buro Happold have created a prototype for a low-rise hospital structure commissioned by the Hamad Medical Corporation.

Previously on Archinect: OMA and Buro Happold reveal designs for the Al Daayan Health District in Doha

Image © HMC

The prototype appears to consist of similar two-story-high modular units that can be adapted and reconfigured to allow for maximal variation and minimal costs. Scalable, self-sufficient, and built using a considerable amount of 3D printing technology, the design is a sustainable refresh to the important typology and hopes to see further use in other climates once the Qatari concept catches on.

Image © HMC

“Medical technology is advancing exponentially, leaving hospitals to...

Qatar will receive three new museums from a trio of Pritzker Prize winners

2022-03-28T19:24:00-04:00

Three new major museum projects were announced yesterday at the 2022 Doha Forum in Qatar.

Qatar Museums Chairperson Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani was on hand to premiere the new initiative, which is meant to kick off the next phase in the country’s development goals propelled by a continued investment in the cultural economy.

Al Mayassa was joined by two-thirds of the architects for the museums: Jacques Herzog of Herzog & de Meuron, who will design the Lusail Museum, and ELEMENTAL director Alejandro Aravena, whose firm will be responsible for the Art Mill. OMA’s Rem Koolhaas, who will design the new Qatar Auto Museum, was the lone holdout.

The Art Mill represents the 21-year-old ELEMENTAL’s first foray into the museum typology. Envisioned as a fusion of performances spaces, contemporary art galleries, and dedicated areas for artist residency programs, what was formerly the site of a historic flour mill will now be transformed into an anchor for various Qatari c...

OMA and Buro Happold reveal designs for the Al Daayan Health District in Doha

2021-10-18T14:50:00-04:00

Final drafts for the joint OMA and Buro Happold-designed Al Daayan Health District are now available, showcasing a localized model of healthcare infrastructure that OMA Partner Reinier de Graaf hopes will be transplanted from Doha, Qatar to the rest of the world.

Image © OMA

The 1.3-million-square-meter (14-million-square-foot) facility will be completely self-sustaining thanks to onsite prefabrication, 3D printing, an agricultural element, and built-in solar farm.

Image © OMA

“Architects have long aimed to provide the hospital with a final solution. This proposal starts from the opposite end: viewing the hospital as the type of building that is forever under construction, as an organism for which space and time must be considered equally,” de Graaf said in a statement.

Image © OMA

The development is anchored by a two-story building that houses a teaching hospital, women’s and children’s hospitals, ambulatory care, and clinical facilities. The new hospital will have capacity for 1,400...

UNStudio designs 37 stations for Doha's new driverless metro system

2020-09-08T13:29:00-04:00

International architecture firm UNStudio has completed work on a collection of subway stations for a new driverless metro system in Doha, Dubai.

The stations are designed according to an "Architectural Branding Manual" created by the firm that provides "an extensive set of design guidelines, architectural details and material outlines to assure the spatial quality and identity of the network," according to a project statement.

Describing the project, UNStudio's Ben van Berkel explains,“We are going to move differently in the future. Mobility is changing fast, from the introduction of autonomous vehicles to urban cable cars and the Hyperloop."

Van Berkel adds, "The mobility hubs of the future have to respond to and cater to these changes. In order to encourage the use of more sustainable forms of transport, these stations not only have to ensure smooth passenger flows, but they need to truly appeal to the public; to be places they want to visit and return to."

The stations are des...

'A tattooed museum:' Jean Nouvel on his design for the National Museum of Qatar

2019-03-29T13:24:00-04:00

[...] the museum site is surrounded by the urban landscape of a modern city, but it still remains under the influence of the desert and the sea, the French architect tells The Art Newspaper in an interview in his Paris studio. Hence his choice of a design inspired by the desert rose, a flower-like cluster of gypsum crystals, which he sees as the “most powerful symbol of the desert, and the influence of wind, time and water”.

Interviewed by The Art Newspaper, Jean Nouvel talks about his design process that lead to the creation of the monumental National Museum of Qatar which opened in the capital city of Doha this week. "The place has become a pedestal for images, a sort of transmitter, a tattooed museum," Nouvel explains.

"Asked about the welfare of migrant construction workers, an issue which has drawn international scrutiny in the run-up to the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, Nouvel says that his team checked that there were decent working and living conditions for employees of the museum building project."

See the project in detail here.

Photo: Iwan Baan.

Migrant workers in Qatar allowed to leave without exit visas

2018-09-07T03:29:00-04:00

A law change that will allow the majority of migrant workers to leave Qatar without permission from their employers has been heralded by campaigners as a landmark in the battle against labour abuses in the build-up to the next World Cup. [...] Under the new law, employers will no longer have the power to deny exit permits to most of their workers, though they will retain this right for 5% of their workforce. The reforms are a “step towards fundamental rights for migrant workers.”

Alejandro Aravena's ELEMENTAL to design the 1 million sq.ft. Qatar Art Mill

2017-05-15T15:58:00-04:00

Alejandro Aravena's Santiago firm ELEMENTAL had the winning concept for the Qatar Art Mill Design Competition. Launched by Qatar Museums in 2015, the three-stage competition sought the architect who will convert an approximately 1 million square-foot flour mill into a new waterfront art museum for Doha Bay...“The [winning] concept design was praised by the international jury as ‘a serene artwork...”

Chosen from eight top-notch finalists, Elemental was inspired by the iconic “rhythmic monumental grain silos” of the original Flour Mills that formerly occupied the site.

Find out more on Bustler.

UNStudio reveals latest designs for the new Doha Metro Network in Qatar

2014-09-18T20:50:00-04:00

After Qatar Rail appointed UNStudio as principal architect, the Dutch firm revealed their designs for the new Doha Metro Network, a major component of the Qatar Integrated Railway Project (QIRP). In an effort to motivate more Doha locals to use public transit, UNStudio's design of the Metro Network consists of traditional Qatari-inspired elements and four transportation lines — with an estimate of 35 stations for Phase 1, followed by around 60 stations for Phase 2.

Quite interesting that UNStudio released these designs at a time when Qatar has been making headlines as of late...

The monuments to Qatar's phenomenal growth

2013-12-27T14:24:00-05:00

"are the skyscrapers that tower over the Corniche, Doha's Waterside Drive, and it's an amazing skyline...There's a building that looks like a great blue cylinder whose top...It looks like Darth Vader helmet at the top of it...a building that looks like a big pickle with a toothpick stuck out of the top and another that's kind of like a vase on a potter's wheel...it looks as if it was a huge architectural competition and everybody won and everybody got to design a building." - Robert Siegel

In a piece about Qatar's National Food Security Program, Robert Siegel examines the challenges and opportunities of food and water security in the Gulf nation. While visiting Doha to speak with Fatah al-Attiya, director of the program, Mr. Siegel reflects on the wealth/success/growth for which Qatar and the other Gulf states have become synonymous in recent decade.

Archinect - News

Herzog & de Meuron​​ update plans for the Lusail Museum in Qatar

Alejandro Aravena previews ELEMENTAL's massive Qatar Art Mill project in Doha

OMA and Buro Happold reveal new video of modular hospital prototype

Qatar will receive three new museums from a trio of Pritzker Prize winners

OMA and Buro Happold reveal designs for the Al Daayan Health District in Doha

UNStudio designs 37 stations for Doha's new driverless metro system

'A tattooed museum:' Jean Nouvel on his design for the National Museum of Qatar

Migrant workers in Qatar allowed to leave without exit visas

Alejandro Aravena's ELEMENTAL to design the 1 million sq.ft. Qatar Art Mill

UNStudio reveals latest designs for the new Doha Metro Network in Qatar

The monuments to Qatar's phenomenal growth

Herzog & de Meuron update plans for the Lusail Museum in Qatar