The love of a man and his master plan

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Aaref Hejres, CEO of Bahrain's US $3.2 billion (BHD1.2 billion) Diyar Al Muharraq talks of his love for the project with such vehemence, even his wife gets jealous.

Someone once said that love is all consuming, and Aaref Hejres is a man in love. For the last two and a half years he has dedicated every waking moment to Diyar Al Muharraq, a $3.2 billion mixed-use development on 12km² of reclaimed islands in the north of Bahrain.

"When I talk about Diyar, I feel like it is in my blood and in my heart. Honestly, it is a love story between me and Diyar," he says.

How did this happen? Like all love stories, it's best to start at the beginning.

Three years ago Hejres was thinking of retiring from his architecture and engineering practice in order to finally get the time to enjoy the spoils of a successful career.

His vision of retirement was already mapped out. In between cruising on his boat and riding his motorbike he had dreams of doing volunteer work.

"I always admired engineers who would go to Africa and build things and I have respect for these people," he says.

But in early 2006 his path in life changed when he was offered the role of CEO at Diyar Al Muharraq. The idea was to create a self contained city which was to include high income housing, mid income housing and, most interestingly, affordable housing.

"I never thought of working like this, I had three of my own companies, I was happy, well established and didn't need the job," says Hejres.

"But when they told me about the project, that it was a city for the people of Bahrain, I saw an opportunity to do something good.

"I have always dreamed of doing something for the people as part of my social contribution and this is where it started."

The first seeds of love were sown. Hejres accepted the job and was presented with a basic master plan, a plot of ocean and a dredger.

From this point he built up his staff of around 30 people, initiated the reclamation process and began adding detail and enhancements to the master plan - a process which he has been heavily involved in.

"To be honest I get involved in everything down to the smallest detail. It's all about details because we want to do something that has never been done in Bahrain," he says.

"I know what Bahrainis like, what Bahrain is lacking, what is acceptable and what is not, and this has added a lot of value to the master plan."

With this in mind Hejres set about creating the "perfect city" by taking successful ideas from around the world and customising them for the Bahrain market.

He and his development team travelled to Australia to study the successful aspects of waterfront living, they modeled their souqs on those in Egypt and Morocco and they're recreating Florida's famous Miami Bayside district. Furthermore, they're building a network of parks, cycle paths and pedestrian walkways in the kingdom to rival the world's best.

Hejres says they have put so much effort into the details of the master plan that he believes Diyar, when complete, will never be rivaled.

"We challenge everything and always look for a better way," he says.

As an example, he cites their efforts to design the first 500 low-income houses which will start being constructed next year. A total of nine consultancies were commissioned, five local and four international.

"We received a total of 91 designs, then removed the names of the companies, shuffled them up and independently criticised each one, before making the final selection," he says.

"If it was somebody else they would have given it to one company and said design the affordable housing. But we took it seriously to make sure the lower end does not get skipped over."

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