Learning tree

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The Incubator Centre Shelters users and connects the surrounding buildings.

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The steel screen facade of the ITTC buildings.

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Early concept sketches of the orientation for the ITTC buildings.

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Early concept sketches of the orientation for the ITTC buildings.

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The Incubator Centre hovers above its podium like a bridge between two primary axis.

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The Incubator Centre hovers above its podium like a bridge between two primary axis.

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Woods Bagot's new science park looks to stimulate creativity and share knowledge among some of Qatar's brightest scientific minds.

From day one, the brief called for Oxford Science Park. It called for a network of typical 2-storey glass boxes that overlooked a series of car parks.

In fact, the client cited the UK's Stockley Park, Cambridge and Oxford Science Park as models from which the first concept designs of Qatar Science & Technology Park (QSTP) should be moulded.

Soon after the concept design stage, however, it was clear to the team at Woods Bagot that something didn't fit.

It knew Her Highness Sheikha Mozah Bint Nasser al Missned-wife of the Emir of Qatar and chairwoman of the Qatar Foundation for Education-wanted something that would establish Qatar as an international hub for scientific exploration and create a sense of community between the academic faculty and independent research groups.

It also knew that given the climate of Qatar and the benchmark status intended for this particular project, Oxford Science Park in the Middle East simply didn't fit.

"We researched those sites and found them to be very typical.... They had duck ponds, with ducks in them; loads of surrounding greenery and a series of roads for driving your car from one place to another," explains Mark Mitcheson-Low, director in charge of QSTP.

"There was nothing really groundbreaking.... We looked at them and then looked at our site and realised how poorly that type of project would suit this region."

Bringing people together

The first design decision undertaken by Woods Bagot was to consider the external climate and realise the need for subterranean parking and thus, shorter walking distances between buildings.

The importance of this realisation was ultimately twofold: creating shorter distances between buildings meant doing away with a need for cars and-in keeping with long-held traditions in Islamic architecture-allowed for greater connectivity between the users of QSTP.

Mitcheson-Low explains the impossibility of fostering a connection in the traditional science park typology.

"How do you create [a connection] if you've got a series of buildings?" he asks.

"The idea was to get rid of the cars and put them under the building. That created a more pedestrian-friendly campus-type structure."

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