Doha: The Latest Architecture and News

ELEMENTAL, led by Pritzker Prize laureate Alejandro Aravena, has been selected as the design team for the Art Mill project in Doha, Qatar. Following a 26-strong longlist and a shortlist of eight internationally renowned practices, including Atelier Bow-Wow and the Renzo Piano Building Workshop, the Chilean practice have been lauded by the jury for developing "a serene artwork, [in which] the structure is the architecture." Once complete, the project will join two other nearby cultural heavyweights: the Museum of Islamic Art, designed by I.M. Pei, and the National Museum of Qatar designed by Jean Nouvel.

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Zaha Hadid Architects have released plans for a 70,000 square meter (750,000 square foot) hotel and residential tower in the Marina District of Lusail City, Qatar. The design is the first of two ZHA projects commissioned by H.H. Sheikh Mohammed Bin Khalifa Al Thani for Lusail City’s integrated community master plan, which when complete will become Qatar’s first and largest sustainable city, providing entertainment, employment and accommodation for up to 450,000 residents and visitors.

Qatar Museums has announced a shortlist of eight finalists that will move on to the third and final stage of the Art Mill International Design Competition in Doha. On a site extending into the Arabian Sea that was only recently occupied by Qatar Flour Mills, Art Mill will integrate gallery and exhibition space with facilities for education, events, conservation, art handling, and research. Joining the Museum of Islamic Art designed by I.M. Pei, and the still under-construction National Museum of Qatar, designed by Jean Nouvel, in the words of the competition brief, “Art Mill will and extend and intensify the cultural quarter being developed in Doha.”

Qatar Museums has launched an international search for an architect to convert an existing flour mill within the Arabian Gulf port into a massive "Art Mill." Planned for a prominent site in Doha, near I.M. Pei’s Museum of Islamic Art and Jean Nouvel’s forthcoming National Museum of Qatar, the new museum will be realized through a three-stage competition open to practicing architects with at least seven years of experience.

"The industrial process of milling has left a fascinating legacy in the layout and spaces of the existing buildings on the site, notably voluminous spaces and a rhythmic, patterned promenade of vertical silos. Some of the Flour Mills buildings possess an authentic monumentality in terms of positioning, scale and noble forms. Re-using and adapting these structures will be integral to the project," says competition organizer Malcolm Reading on the Art Mill's official site. 

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Qatar's Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy (SC) has unveiled the fifth proposed venue planned for the 2022 FIFA World Cup, this time designed by London-based Pattern Architects. Titled "Al Rayyan Stadium," the 40,000-seat Qatari-inspired structure will be built on the site of the former Ahmed Bin Ali Stadium, of which 90 percent of its materials generated from demolition are expected to be re-used for either public art projects or on the new stadium.

Foster + Partners has been chosen ahead of David Chipperfield Architects, Mossessian & Partners and Mangera Yvars Architects to design the 2022 FIFA World Cup Qatar centerpiece - the Lusail Stadium. The British practice will now move forward with its competition-winning scheme (first proposed in 2010) with the help of stadium experts ARUP and Populous.

“It is an honor to design this centerpiece stadium – we are delighted to have won the international competition. This is an exciting step forward in stadium design – it will be the first to break the mould of the free standing suburban concept, and instead anticipates the grid of this future city, of which it will be an integral part,” said Norman Foster, founder of Foster + Partners.

Spanish-Kuwaiti firm AGi architects has been awarded second prize in a competition to design a new courthouse in Qatar’s capital, Doha. The restricted competition, organized by the Government of Qatar, challenged 30 participants, of which four were shortlisted to compete in the final round.

AGi’s proposal was based off of two grids - the immediate site’s and the larger city - resulting in a “floating,” canopy-like structure that metaphorical “protects” its inhabitants. View the complete proposal, after the break. 

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Aiming to encourage the use of public transportation as a valid alternative to private transportation, Qatar Rail has appointed UNStudio to design the stations for the first phase of the Greater Doha Metro Network, part of the Qatar Integrated Railway Project (QIRP). With the first phase consisting of 30 stations on 4 metro lines, UNStudio has created an "Architectural Branding Manual," a set of design guidelines, architectural details and material outlines which will be used by the design & build firms on each station to ensure the design quality and coherence of the network as a whole.

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Located in Doha, Sharq Crossing is a set of three interconnected bridges spanning almost ten kilometres in the Doha Bay. Designed by the famed architect Santiago Calatrava, the bridge will connect the city's cultural district in the north to Hamad International Airport and the central business district in West Bay. The bridges, which are designed to accomodate as many as 2,000 vehicles an hour per lane, are also flanked by a series of subsea tunnels to manage and direct the flow of traffic across the bay.