Learning tree

As designs for QSTP evolved, Alf Seeling, design director and concept masterplanning (Middle East), began to recognise the inevitability of mimicking a typology that has been used in the region for centuries.

"We tried to get rid of the cars and, in doing so, we looked at the way Islamic cities had been built up over time and we found a kind of patterned order in the way those cities grew and expanded."

That research led Woods Bagot to develop buildings in clusters around internal courtyards, which connect to further clusters in the overall masterplan.

The desire to retain a strong connectivity between the buildings and users led to the decision to connect what would traditionally be a series of teaching and research facilities under one undulating roof. This led to the creation of what came to be known as the Incubator Centre.

The literal nucleus of QSTP, the Incubator Centre is located at the centre of the site on an elevated podium, just beneath a rippling veil-like roof structure.

It is set against flat perforated screen façades and punctuated by three atria, which reinforce the Islamic architectural notion of using ‘hard' exclusionary façades to protect ‘soft' introverted living spaces.

"The Incubator hovers above the carpark which gives it back to the public and further highlights its role as the nucleus of the project," explains Peter Miglis, project director (Australia).

"It had to be something that evoked technology. At the same time, it had to have a level of tradition to it.

It was hard to draw on the exisiting vernacular as an inspiration but we did draw on the language of the Arabian courtyard."

Replicating the pattern

The Incubator Centre is flanked by clusters of ITTC laboratory buildings that are clad in patterned steel screens to create eye-catching geometric shapes while protecting and facilitating high-level research.

The client's brief called for flexible spaces that could develop, expand and interchange as the needs of the user did likewise.

In trying to provide the most flexible open-plan workspace, Woods Bagot and the client chose to incorporate both interstitial floors and peristitial walls, which allow for servicing both upper and lower floors and position mechanical services to external locations around the perimeter of the building.

The solution was a benchmark in Qatari architecture and ultimately made load-bearing columns within the workspace unnecessary. By providing a 27m column-free floor plate and flexibility for maintenance and refitting along the outside perimeter, the buildings remain both fully adaptable and fully secure.

READERS' COMMENTS

MORE FROM ARABIANBUSINESS.COM