YOUR AOK Launch Event

By Ali Al Yousifi

YOURAOK website
Nuqat website

               On the 28^th of May, the new media and publishing company, YOUR AOK, launched their new networking website (youraok.net) and magazine. The concept behind both website and magazine is to create an interactive platform that allows creators of all design professions to share their ideas, products, and projects. This platform will also allow product suppliers and design firms to advertise their products, showcase their work, and scout for talents. 

youraok PAGES - issue 1

               The event took place in Al Hamra Tower’s 55^th floor Sky Lounge. It was organized in collaboration with Nuqat, who conducted a discussion panel entitled “Shift the Shift”, discussing the creative shift that has been taking place in the region. The panelists were: Raneem Farsi (moderator), Dr. Alanoud AlSharekh, Dr. Nasser AbulHassan, Architect Barrak AlBabtain, and Mohammad Abuhekmah.

Discussion Panel

                Other parts of the event were designed to be physical representations of the YOUR AOK website. This was done in three sections: the first showcasing the work of talents (mostly art), the second showcasing the work of design firms (mostly architecture), and the third showcasing the products of participating supplier companies (mostly furniture). 

Talents Section

Design Firms Section

Product Suppliers Seciton

               I personally found the event both enlightening and entertaining; the panelists did a great job in addressing the changes that have taken place, and those that should be taking place in the near future. The overall theme was empowering normal people, the general public, to take part in shaping their intellectual and physical environment, which is the key to a better future. As Mohammad Abuhekmah kept insisting, “just do it!”

Housing Kuwait's Future - Part 1

By T-Square

               This past spring semester, students enrolled in the Design 6 class were asked to think of innovative ideas that would help solve Kuwait's housing shortage, or at least better the quality of residential buildings in Kuwait. The assignment was to design a house within a 400, 250, 200, or 150 m² plot. The idea was to design a house with the same program (number of rooms and areas) as current governmental housing, but on a smaller plot of land. Although students were allowed to go up to 6 stories high (this is why some houses look like towers).

               It’s difficult to show the details of the student work through plans, sections, and elevations in this blog format, so we will only showcase some renderings that hopefully would inspire visions of a better way of living.

Design 6 class was taught by:
Dr. Qutaiba Hamada
Dr. Abdualmuttalib Al Ballam 
Arch. Sally Khanafer
Arch. Adel Al Bloushi

Student: Abdulla Ali

Student: Alaa Jamal

Student: Ali Al Yousifi

Student: Almaha Al Ajmi

Student: Esraa Al Shammri

Invention that Could Charge Your Phone in Less than 30 Seconds

By Hessa AlHabashi
Photos courtesy of IndiaWest

For those of you that forget to charge your phone until the minute you're about to leave the house, you'll be happy to here that a girl won the Intel Foundation Young Scientist Award, for inventing a device that can charge a phone in 20-30 seconds.


This device is called a supercapacitator, and can store up a lot of energy into a small space and will last a long time. The creator complains that her phone kept running out of charge when asked what inspired her to create such a gizmo. 


The invention's future is quite bright, as she sees it fitting into portable devices and allowing people to go a longer time without charging their phones on electrical outlets. It could also be formatted to be used on car batteries someday.


“It is also flexible, so it can be used in rollup displays and clothing and fabric,” Eesha Khare, the eighteen year-old inventor, stated. “It has a lot of different applications and advantages over batteries in that sense.”


Eesha Khare has won $50,000 in the fair and plans to attend Harvard University this fall. Watch video of Eesha Khare on her invention here.


Now we don't have to worry about our phones dying out in a History lesson, it'll be fully charged for our entertainment within seconds.

9th KASA Exhibition

By Ali Al Yousifi

KASA (Kuwait Architecture Student Association) held their ninth annual exhibition in The Avenues Mall this past Sunday. The Exhibition showcased many projects designed by the Students of Kuwait University’s College of Architecture. The exhibition extended for three days; these are some pictures from the opening night:

Saudi Arabia's Future Metro Station

By Hessa Al Habashi
Photos courtesy of Zaha Hadid Architects

Architect Zaha Hadid has won the competition to design the new metro station in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. This new metro station, also known as King Abdullah Financial District Metro Station, is part of the new public transport system.

The Architect describes the design as "A 3D lattice defined by a sequence of opposing sine-waves"

Since Riyadh's population nearly doubled in the past fifteen years, the government wanted to reduce their carbon footprint, giving its residents an alternative transportation method to cars. The lattice-like designed station will take up more than 20,000 m² in space and will be 4 storeys high, and two storeys underground, making the station a total of six storeys.

Exterior view of the station

Unfortunately, we all know that this metro station and many others including ones that have not been designed yet will be up and running before Kuwait's own metro station will even begin construction. 

Interior view showing circulation indoors

Sine waves continuing well inside the building

Wamdha Exhibition

By Hessa Al-Habashi

Photography by Ali Al Yousifi

          On the fifteenth of May, Kuwait University's own Arch. Abdulla Al Awadhi and Eng. Nawaf Al Ali organized the Wamdha Exhibition to showcase the final projects of students taking Photography 1 class, who are part of Kuwait University's College of Architecture. This event took place in Bayt Lothan's courtyard.

          Since it was Photography 1 class, all photos had to be black and white, and had to have developed from the previous Photography 1 class project of 'manipulation'. 

Unlikely Friend – Purple Edition

By Ali Al Yousifi

This is the carpet color of a building I often visit. Now before you start discussing whether the person who chose this color should be sentenced to life in prison or simply hung, let me say that I don’t mind the color. Not only that, but the last time I was in the building, I barely even noticed the carpet.

This is because, as I have discovered, no matter how bizarre, out of place, or outrageous anything is, if you see it enough times, it’ll grow on you. Soon you won't even noticing it. This continues until you take it for granted, and even start to like it. 

I was shocked the first time I walked into the door and saw that the old dark blue carpet was replaced with this bright purple one. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Was it a joke? Who would ever choose such a color? But now, I’m sure that if this carpet is replaced with something more sensible, I’d miss its comical purpleness. 

Façade Fixing

By Ali Al Yousifi

This is a chalet building. I’ve been visiting this building since I was a child. Even before I started studying architecture, I found the façade strangely confusing (don’t you?). I always imagined it as a face: entrance as a mouth, big window as a nose, two small windows as eyes. But these facial features have been unpleasantly distorted, and shifted out of place

I mean why isn’t the big window on top of the entrance? It seems so obvious! And why isn’t the entrance in the center of the façade? This façade is almost begging to be symmetrical, but it’s been impossible to alter the annoying architect’s aesthetic decisions.

But now that I am an architecture student, finally I can do something to end this façade’s decades-long torment. By the power of Photoshop, I shall make it right:

Ah... So much better. Or did it have a certain charm before I ruined it?

T-Print: Issue Two

By T-Square

Front

Back

These are pictures of the two houses mentioned in the article:

Al Faiha House

Dahia Abdulla Al Salem House