Going underground

As design jobs go, a metro system has to be among the most unique. In anticipation of the launch of the Dubai Metro, CID speaks to John Carolan of KCA International about the trials and tribulations of working on such an unusual and iconic project.

As a young designer, John Carolan, now design director of KCA International in Dubai, worked on one of the Sultan of Brunei’s palaces.

He was put on ‘bathroom duty’, responsible for designing what can only be imagined were some of the most opulent bathrooms in the world. At the time, he might have been forgiven for thinking that that would be the most prestigious project of his design career. Then came Burj Al Arab, a striking landmark that emerged as a symbol of Dubai’s lofty ambitions – and catapulted KCA International to design stardom. And now, the Dubai Metro.

To coincide with the anticipated launch of the Metro this month, we asked Carolan to talk us through the trials and tribulations inherent in such a large-scale, high-profile project.

As projects go, a metro system is quite unique. I’m assuming that you haven’t worked on anything like this before. Was the prospect quite daunting?

When it happened, we never thought, ‘Oh my God, I don’t know what to do’. I suppose that just comes with experience. When I first qualified as a designer, I remember thinking that I never wanted to be pigeon-holed because that would mean that I wasn’t able to experience the whole spectrum of design.

I went to college as a mature student. I got to a point in my life when I was 26 years old and thought I should start thinking seriously about what I wanted to do. I treated it like a job. I used to get in there at 8.30am and leave at seven, and sometimes work all night, whereas some of the younger guys were just messing around. I got through that and managed to get a distinction.

One of my tutors employed me at his architectural practice as soon as I got out of college but, within a year, he had run out of work. I then worked at the BBC for a year and a half, doing set design. I worked on things like To the Manor Born, Parkinson and Basil Brush, big shows like that. I also worked on the royal wedding.

I then went on to get a job with an international design agency that had offices all over the world. At the time, it was doing a palace for the Sultan of Brunei and needed someone to concentrate on the bathrooms. So I designed the majority of the bathrooms for the palace. It was quite exciting.

I’ve been very fortunate, moving through that and then finally getting into this business, which opened up a whole new sphere. When I got to the Metro five years ago, it was just another job. People were saying: ‘Oh you can’t do that because you’ve never done it before’. But why not? It’s just design.

How did KCA International get the job?

We had worked with Al Habtoor-Murray & Roberts on the Burj Al Arab. They were one of three or four consortia bidding on the Metro. All of the bids were based on the principle that you produce architecture and then, obviously, there was the financial bid and the design bid.

Aedas had done a bid for the stations, both overground and underground. It was a beautiful piece of architecture. And then Al Habtoor-Murray & Roberts had this idea that to give them an edge, they would bring in designers – and who better to bring in than KCA International, because we’d done the Burj.

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