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Event: Faster and Bigger: Building in the Middle East
Location: Center for Architecture, 04.02.12
Speakers: Scott Duncan, AIA, LEED, Design Director, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill; Sudhir Jambhekar, FAIA, RIBA, LEED AP, Senior Partner and Design Principal, FXFOWLE; Roger Nickells, B. Eng (Hon), C. Eng., MICE, Partner and Managing Director for the Middle East, Buro Happold
Moderator: Hassan Radoine, Ph.D., Head of the Architectural Engineering Department at the College of Engineering, University of Sharjah, UAE
Organizers: Center for Architecture
Benefactor: A. Esteban & Company
Lead Sponsor: Buro Happold
Sponsors: Eytan Kaufman Design and Development; FXFOWLE
Supporters: Arup; Columbia University, Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation; Dewan Architects & Engineers; GAD; HDR; Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates; NAGA Architects; Ramla Benaissa Architects; RBSD Architects; Skidmore, Owings & Merrill; World Monuments Fund; Zardman
The panel of experts discusses large-scale building in the Middle East.
Laura Trimble
Glittering new towers are rising again in the Middle East, less than four years after the catastrophic collapse of Dubai’s real estate market. Despite global economic turmoil, nations in the Gulf Cooperation Council (or GCC, comprising the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and Oman) continue to implement ambitious development schemes of enormous size.
One such project is the King Abdullah Financial District (KAFD), in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The KAFD is intended to be the new Central Business District for the city. As Scott Duncan, AIA, LEED AP, described it, the proposed development is comparable in size to a miniature downtown Manhattan. Sudhir Jambhekar, FAIA, RIBA, LEED AP, and Roger Nickells, B. Eng (Hon), C. Eng., MICE, are also designing structures within the KAFD. Consequently, when the three discussed their overlapping experiences, the conversation illuminated a number of issues confronting architects working in the GCC.
First and foremost is the question of speed. Nickells explained that governments, rather than private sector entities, currently control most large-scale development schemes. As a result, these megaprojects become devices to placate nervous populations or enhance the credentials of politicians or aristocrats. The Saudi government, for instance, views the KAFD Conference Center as the catalyst for future development in the District, and Duncan asserted that King Abdullah wants to be present at the opening ceremonies. Concerns over the King’s poor health, however, have forced the entire project—from initial design to finished construction—to be realized in 14 months.
Hassan Radoine, Ph.D., fears that architects designing projects in the region are forced by accelerated schedules to create buildings that lack aesthetic and contextual sensitivity. Without time to devote to learning about the heritage and character of a place, architects tend to rely on their standard stylistic or formal tropes. As Radione chided, Zaha Hadid’s building in Rabat looks the same as her building in Abu Dhabi, despite the fact that the two cities are separated by thousands of miles. Worse, Radoine continued, is when designers without a clear feeling for the spirit of a place misguidedly adopt Orientalist pastiche in an effort to blend into the surrounding context.
Radoine also worried that the speed and scale of these megaprojects have a negative impact on humanity. The sheer size of development could produce mini-metropolises that lack the fine-grained grit and soul required of healthy, fully-functioning cities. In addition, the construction process requires thousands of unskilled migrant laborers, who are often underpaid, overworked, or otherwise abused by their employers. Human Rights Watch documented this phenomenon during the previous construction boom in Dubai. Radoine also expressed an aesthetic concern, in that compressed time frames force broad-stroke schemes, with little attention paid to design details that ultimately delight viewers.
Regardless of the professional impact upon architects and engineers, it will be intriguing to see the results of the current development surge in the GCC. Will these megaprojects contribute to healthy, vital communities, or will they be theme parks for the economic and cultural elite? Only time will tell.
Matt Shoor is an architect, writer, and educator currently employed by Macrae-Gibson Architects. He is a frequent contributor to e-Oculus, and recently received his architectural license.