Holy Towers, Batman!

By Hessa Al Habashi
Images courtesy of http://www.building.co.uk/

Unlike the towers of Gotham City in the comic books, this one will be located in London. The 170 m high tower, designed by architect team Make, got its nickname after being inspired by neo-gothic architecture featured in Tim Burton’s Batman films.

The area was acquired by Henderson Global Investments, and will feature over 910,000 square feet of total floor area, where retail space will comprise of 20,000 square feet of this space.

If Henderson gets the thumbs up from the London Corporation, they’ll be able to build what will be the 13th highest building in London. First place going to the 306 m high Shard London Bridge.

Construction will begin in 2015 and is planned to finish in 2019.

Architecture College, Here I Come!

By Ahmad Ashkanani

This is part 2 of a previous post that, using poetry, illustrated the journey students of Kuwait University’s College of Architecture make from their displaced parking spaces to their beloved campus (read here). This poem continues the journey:

Crossing the bridge I said my goodbyes,

Seeking what next adventure ahead lies

Uninformed I was after entering the gate,

As life was still blurry, it was half past eight

The sky filled with clouds, the rain finally stopped,

Maybe the scorching sun would appear, god I hope not

As I walked alone on a straight pathway to class,

On my right, a parking lot; on my left, a small patch of grass

At the end of the path I saw something I did not before,

A landscape of trees that I didn’t expect to adore

Gazing upon the grid-placed-trees, my face drew a smile,

As if nature defending its place, rose from the tile

Observing the trees as if time stood still, but alas

My journey had not yet finished, still much to surpass

Far left the building top appeared as the sun came out,

“That must be the building” I said, “It must be, no doubt!”

Beyond the grid, my eyes noticed what was before unseen

A tunnel leading to the entrance with walls of green

Trees bending greeting one another at the top it seems,

Offering shade and dancing silhouettes from penetrating solar beams

At the end, reaching the doors I calmly exhaled,

Turning the knob not expecting what would be unveiled

The doors opened and cool air passed on to my face,

But the adventure isn’t done, I have to explore this place

National Assembly Logo Competition

By Hessa Al Habashi

In case you're good at graphic design or you just want to participate in a competition, I suggest you check out the competition to design the new National Assembly logo. 

You can check the guidelines to the competition here and the winner will recieve a prize of KD5,000

Head on over to their website to join.

"Not Just a Pop-Up" By Visual Therapy

By Hessa Al Habashi

Visual Therapy will be presenting their very first show in Dar Al Funoon on Tuesday, 16th of July. The event will have a live mural during the show which will be painted by Monstariam, a graffiti artist in Kuwait, and will also feature artwork by Kuwaiti artist F160 and artist Zebadiah Keneally.

Visual Therapy's ‘Not Just a Pop-Up’ will also have a graffiti shop that will be selling street art supplies and merchandise. It will also be debuting their second t-shirt collaboration with Iranian Artist, A1-one.

The event will be from 8-11 pm, for more information please visit www.visualtherapyonline.com

"City of Silk"

By Hessa Al Habashi
Photography credits http://www.civicarts.com/madinat-al-hareer.php

            I was one of those people who thought that Kuwait was never going to come up with something new and surprising. I thought it was just going to pop up with one shopping mall after another, and that was how Kuwait was going to be for the rest of our lives. Apparently, apparently I was mistaken.

I came across a recent CNN interview with Sheikh Mohammed Al Abdullah Al Sabah and the Kuwaiti Minister of State government spokesman who have stated that Madinat Al Hareer or "City of Silk" will begin construction over the next five years.

They've recognized that Kuwait has lagged in developing its country unlike other countries such as Japan and Singapore; and will begin a project which will be the largest in the Gulf region. It will cost approximately 270 billion Kuwaiti Dinars.  

“City of Silk will be an integrated city, home to more than 700 thousand people and designed with more means of communication and modern technology and considered the largest construction project Kuwait history has known. It is set to complete during the next five years and will be a key factor to attract local and foreign investments and the construction will continue for 15 years to come.”  

Madinat Al Hareer will be built in Subiyah area, north of the Kuwait Bay, and proposes a future of sustainability in Kuwait. It will not only house the tallest building in the world (One Kilometer Long) - Burj Mubarak al Kabeer, but will also supply 700,000 people homes and create 450,000 jobs. It will have a sports complex and a duty free mall.

The architects in charge are the CivicArts architecture firm, which has released renderings over the past few years. This city will also be the home of a new international airport as well as a new National Park and Wildlife Reserve. 

It will be divided into separate districts/regions:

-Business

-Culture

-Leisure

Underneath are pictures of the hopefully future city which will be created in Kuwait; here's for hoping it actually gets built instead of just becoming another myth like the Kuwaiti Metro.

T-Print: Draw an Architect – Part 2

By T-Square

These are some other participations:

Abdulaziz Lafi Al Anezy

Anonymous

Abdullah Ali

Ehsan Abdulrasoul

Abdullah Al Haddad

Ali Al Yousifi

Mejren Al Mejren

T-Print: Draw an Architect – Part 1

By T-Square

               For the third issue of T-Print, we asked the students and faculty of KU’s College of Architecture to sketch their idea of an architect around a pair of glasses that we provided. These are some of the participations:

WARNING: students’ creativity may surprise you!

Moodhy Al Bannai

Dr. Gio

Mishaal Al Musaileekh

Latifah

Lulwa Al Habashi

Ahmed Al Houli

Dr. Abdulmuttaleb Al Ballam

Ehsan Abdulrasoula

Atari - The Restaurant with the Dark Green Façade

By Hessa Al Habashi

A post about a restaurant, because everyone else is doing it, but I think I’ll try something new. Everyone who’s met me knows how much I love food, and doing posts about restaurants will not only give me an excuse to go to new restaurants and review their architectural ‘elements’, but also, I get to eat. Who doesn’t love a math equation that goes like that? So from now on, every month, we’ll be reviewing the architecture of a selected restaurant around Kuwait, and to our delight, we have quite a concentrated amount of adequately designed restaurants in Kuwait.

This month’s pick is Atari. You might’ve passed by it a couple of times on your way to Slider Station/Prime & Toast. What caught my attention was the dark green façade; it makes anyone give it a second glance. It had a fun menu, and I might go back again, but since this is an architecture blog, no one comes here to hear what I have to say about the food, right? (unless you want me to, I won’t say no).

The place is small and cozy, two floors, and reminds me of the restaurants I see on TV. You know the ones owned by the couple that just had to open up their own restaurants. The kitchen and the seating area is separated by a wall with a small window looking into what the chefs are up to. The floors are paneled and reminded me of being in a bathroom, just a tad.

I think I’ve criticized the place a bit too much, maybe I should go into compliments now? They have these little stickers around the restaurant which I really liked. It made me want to tour the place and look for them, and boy did I find a lot. What I also liked was the graffiti on the wall and on the tables of typewriters, TV sets and rabbits!

But aside from all that, I enjoyed the food and it was pretty quiet so I can’t complain (at least not more than I have already). The designer is Aseel Al Yaqoub, and the place is located in the Seef strip of restaurants where I also saw a cat watching me, look down for photos of said cat.

T-Print: Issue Two

By T-Square