PHASE 4 - Old Souk

Focus Area Plan

The proposal for the old souk is to convert the inner core into a vocational school for the workers within the community.  This need for education stands to reason as the workers learn new skills to be employed towards the re-development of Al Hamriya.  
The ethic of the architecture and the landscape is to serve as an example to both the community and students of how creative ideas can come out of low-tech methods.  The school creates a learning environment full of opportunity of understanding even by sitting and observing.  The innovative use of gabion walls, re-interpreted use of the mashrabiya screen, and an infusion of native plant-life supported by the living machine and rainwater harvesting are but a few examples of on-site sustainable strategies.  

Inner courtyard of vocational school 

Exploring the use of a hyperbolic paraboloid tensile roof structure 

Conceptual diagram of threshold to adjacent focus areas

Interwoven use of ropes to move the user into the area

North connection towards underpass

Connecting spaces within the school (Version I)

Emphasizing paving patterns + living machine

Connecting spaces within the school (Version II)

Emphasizing integrated seating + mashrabiya screen in landscape