Time to shine

Editor, Orlando Crowcroft

It is not often in my line of work that people are brutally honest.

It’s not that they lie outright – at least, not that often – it’s just that in the current climate consultants want to put on a brave face. No one likes bad news in this business, not architects, not clients, nobody.

But empty construction sites don’t lie, and during a trip to Bahrain last month I was surprised to hear a local consultant admit the worst. We’re at rock bottom, he said: things are bad, they’re unlikely to get worse, but still, they’re bad.

He didn’t want to be named – after all he is honest, not suicidal – but it was his view that the industry shouldn’t kid itself. Bahrain’s major projects, like Amwaj, are like ghost towns, and the departure of Australian firm Davenport Campbell pretty much overnight earlier this year is still a fresh memory. It is to the credit of the designers that the development is a happy home to plenty of Bahraini residents, but there as many empty shells as there are finished buildings.

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As for Bahrain Financial Harbour, the towers are impressive, but head inside the mall and you quickly see that the bold, glass exterior has not inspired a bustling interior. The building is already three years old, but you would be hard pushed to find an open store on the retail level.

So what does this say about the industry in the GCC as a whole? Well, not that much really. Everyone knows Bahrain has had it hard this year, and even the most negative of consultants I spoke to in the kingdom consoled themselves that at least things hadn’t been as bad as certain other areas of the Gulf.

The reason that Bahraini consultants are not ‘doing a Davenport Campbell’ is not only because, as Bahraini firms, they have nowhere else to go, it's because they know things will get better. All markets suffer their down periods, especially after growth like the Gulf has experienced in the last ten years. The view is that while Bahraini firms are having to lower their expectations, there is still work around.

Architects are bidding for government contracts, smaller projects and even individual residences. One managing director told me that while Bahrain was suffering, firms simply had to look a bit harder to find work. His firm was involved in renovations of existing projects, a market that was showing no sign of dropping off.

And so although this column started on negative note, it will finish on a positive one. People thought I was crazy moving to Dubai earlier this year. They thought it was finished, but six months on and Dubai projects have dominated this year’s Middle East Architect awards, and a Dubai-based firm, X Architects, won two categories.

The problems of places like Bahrain and Dubai are far from over, but the fact remains that the glory days of 2008 and 2009 were easy – the time to shine is now.
 

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