Arabian Expansion

Tim Makower sketches in Doha's newest souk
[More Images]

The UK’s Allies and Morrison is set to launch its new office in Doha. Principal Tim Makower speaks with Jeff Roberts about the potential for Qatar and the region

After putting together a large European portfolio, what brings Allies and Morrison to Qatar?

TM: Partly with the support of DohaLand we’re setting up a branch office in Qatar, but we’re also looking further a field. There’s a lot going on in Doha and we feel we’ve got a lot to contribute.

We feel the vision from His and Her Highness for a sustainable, lasting architecture—architecture that isn’t just glass and metal greenhouses overheating in the desert—is our kind of vision. We also feel that our contextual approach can have a very broad application and will appeal to a broad variety of clients.

What has been the market response to A&M’s arrival?

TM: We’ve had nothing but good experiences working with people here. Doha is very exciting right now; it has a very convivial feeling about it. To feel comfortable with one’s clients and co-consultants and to enjoy working with them is quite an important part of the whole mixture. Considering everyone we’ve worked with so far, we certainly feel very comfortable.

Story continues below

Advertisement

FEATURED COMMENT Please click here to comment on this article

TM: Simon Gathercole, one of our associate directors, is coming over to head up the office and he’ll be here from September 2009. We are planning to start as very much a satellite office with a dedicated team dealing with one or two of the most important projects that require specialised or sensitive client communications.

That said, we do have a wider strategic plan to make sure the world knows we’re here and we’re available for other projects if people are interested. We’ve begun talking to several other people about various things, so it’s very exciting right now.

Why Doha? Why not Abu Dhabi or Bahrain or even Kuwait City?

TM: You could argue that we’re fitting into a niche in Qatar. First, we are design architects, no doubt. In a way, there is no one like that based in Doha.

There are some who do projects like the ones we’re looking at and of course there’s competition from other countries but I don’t think any of our competitors have branch offices in Doha yet.

Your most recent commission, The Heart of Doha, is a very important project for Qatar. What is it like to work with and for Her Highness Sheika Mozah?

TM: Our relationship with Her Highness has been one of presentation and response. In terms of the Heart of Doha, we weren’t there at the early stages. We came on board once there was a vision in place.

I am not sure where the original set of ideas about what the site might become and what the architects should bring to the project or what kind of approach to urban living the project should instil came from.

Having met Her Highness a few times though, I am sure that she was an integral part of that debate. She is an expert at the art of listening. Her Highness is an expert at getting straight to the point and being extremely insightful without getting drawn into too much detail.

She feels and acts and talks like a real driving force and she will continue to be throughout this renaissance of Qatar.

A&M has a reputation for being a very contextual firm. Can you give the readers some examples?

TM: Opposite our own office in London, just south of Tate Modern, is a large development of retail/office space. It’s a new piece of city. It used to be pretty industrial, pretty grungy but we wanted to create a new vibrant place to be.

We wanted to create a new destination for people to work and live. One of the buildings is quite glassy and bright. It is very big, strong and visible. It’s sliced and carved to reflect the geometries of and evolving patterns of that part of London. The other two buildings are terra cotta; much more solid; much more like warehouse buildings. They’re quite tough; they reflect the tough surroundings.

The King’s Cross master plan is another project in which we demonstrated a quite extraordinary reading of context. It’s the most significant railway cluster of Victorian railway buildings in Britain. The northern half is goods yard—train sheds and warehouses—but the southern part is a crunching together of King’s Cross and St. Pancras and it much more to do with passengers and the insertion into the older urban grain. That is a highly complex context within which to work. That project doesn’t just feel like Canary Wharf or Broadgate—it feels like King’s Cross.

Other than the Qatar office, does A&M have other ties to the Gulf or the greater Middle East?

TM: We’re working with Solidere in Cairo, on a huge master plan on which Solidere did the preliminary design for the Egyptian developer SODIC. They are setting a new standard for high-quality residential and office development.

The project is called ‘West Town’—not to be confused with its adjacent project ‘East Town’—and includes a town centre, a central boulevard, several urban blocks as well as some suburban residential developments. We’re working on an urban block of about 20 mixed-use and shading structures in the central boulevard.