Back to the future

"In an education space, you want to send the message that history matters. You want to send the message that you are looking towards the future and you are learning from the past."

The souq, the dhow and the vessel are three traditional elements that Patel chose as metaphors for the distinctive elements of GUST. This imagery informed Patel's designs; allowing him to create an effective, innovative science and technology facility that is firmly rooted in tradition.

"When we looked at the programme of what the university wanted, it really felt like it broke itself down into three main categories," says Patel. "The three main elements are the classrooms, or teaching space; the interactive concourse space; and the IT room, book shops, coffee shops and restaurants, which can be seen as the assembly space."

Patel says that the idea of the souq was an effective metaphor that encapsulated the structural and aesthetic qualities that he wanted to be inherent to the concourse. "The souq is a place where people can gather and walk down. The souq met the requirements of a place where people could interact, they could have a coffee, they could chat."

The image of the dhow going out to sea was the metaphor that Patel felt reflected the gathering of knowledge. In creating the different classroom wings, he envisaged that like the dhows of the past went out to sea to collect pearls, fish and trade, "the learning wings can be seen as something that is going out to help the students gain knowledge," says Patel.

The third metaphor, the vessel, reflects the gathering, or the assembly of people in one place. "Like a beautifully carved vessel gathers materials or water or food, areas like the gymnasium, the assembly hall and the IT room will be spaces for people to gather," explains Patel.

The materials

The three ‘vessels' within GUST, are each clad in different colours of aluminium. By way of contrast, Patel chose Jerusalem limestone for the façade of the concourse, or souq, and terracotta tiles for the classroom wings, the ‘dhows'.

"We wanted to express each of the three types of spaces with different materials, and juxtapose natural against man-made materials," says Patel.

While high-tech, cutting edge and innovative are words typically associated with science and technology, Patel has managed to add a traditional richness to this modern structure in interesting and intelligent ways.

"When I think of traditional concepts, I am thinking of the traditional way that people use space. I'm not interested in whether it is an old design or a new design, I just want to understand what people are comfortable with," explains Patel.

"I think that modern facilities should not completely disregard history, but history to me doesn't mean that you copy something that was done 20 years ago or 100 years ago in terms of the façade or the plan," he adds. "But if you can extract what the essence was, how the people moved around in that space, my sense is that it helps the building become successful."

Contextual flexibility

The presence that GUST holds within its physical context is both complementary to and distinctive from its surroundings. The forms are clean, modern and minimalist. But as GUST is not one large building, but rather separate elements made cohesive by the concourse, it fits with its context very well.

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