迪拜美国大学学生建筑项目亮点纷呈

A residential building typology that challenges Dubai's standalone towers and a community hub that connects a neighbourhood via sport are included in Dezeen's latest school show by students at The American University in Dubai.

The projects also include a tent designed to unite religious communities in Dubai and a tower intended to educate people on sustainability while promoting biofuel-producing architecture.

School: The American University in Dubai, SAAD School of Architecture Art and Design - Bachelor of Architecture

Courses: ARCH 502, Architectural Design Studio X, Final Senior Project

Tutors: Anna Cornaro, Takeshi Maruyama and Abdellatif Qamhaieh

School statement:

"This is a final course in which students implement their thesis research by developing a project that incorporates all the principles of design, demonstrating a comprehensive understanding of architectural design and evidence of professional capability.

"The course outcomes are exhibited in a senior showcase where a jury of experts was invited to vote. The 2021 architecture senior showcase ran online on Behance from 27 April to 29 April.

"A jury of 40 international experts, coming from academia, professional realm and press, voted the projects – first, second, third, honourable mentions and design awards. Another series of awards involved an internal academic jury – professors, alumni, faculty – and an external jury included students and the public."

First Place Award and the Faculty and Alumni Award: The Cessation/Memorial Museum by Joe Sassine Finianos

"The project aims at being the cessation of relationship, civilian and historical losses witnessed by the Lebanese people. It aims at fixing the relationship loss that was broken in 1975 when the city of Beirut got divided between Christians and Muslims.

"The demographic distribution of the people shows a clear evident line in the separation of the two religious groups. The thesis highlights the citizens who died, making their memory live and making them a lesson for the upcoming generations.

"The thesis also studies the numerous destructions in historical monuments and art crafts after every explosion or war. The repeated cycle is evident after every war where museums lose historical artefact due to poor storage, people lose their loved ones as a result of the explosions and the relationship between the two religious group worsens."

Student: Joe Sassine Finianos

Course: ARCH 502, Architectural Design Studio X

Email: [email protected]

Second Place Award: The Isle by Rhea Khoury

"The Isle is a micro-city where students have the freedom to explore their passions and make their own decisions on what and how they want to learn. New teaching methods encourage new solutions on how educational spaces should be organised and designed – moving from a still and disciplined environment to a student-centred, flexible and adaptable space for all different kinds of people.

"The young adults from the schools around the Isle and beyond come from different backgrounds and gather to learn from each other and coexist. The different typologies of spaces encourage learning, collaboration, innovation, identity, inclusion and communication. The environment becomes the teacher."

Student: Rhea Khoury

Course: ARCH 502, Architectural Design Studio X

Email: [email protected]

Third Place Award: Pedestrian Enclave by Dalia Qasem

"The concept of Pedestrian Enclave revolves around the nature of social gathering and interaction in the site. These encounters have a unique identity and result from multiple factors that include but are not limited to: overcrowding, vibrant street life, and the presence of low-income residents that feel a disconnect from the rest of the city.

"The goal was to integrate a structure into the chosen site to refine the pedestrian experience and create pleasant gathering spaces by inserting elevated platforms with different levels connected to the roofs of the existing buildings and create a central hub to host some of the missing amenities.

"Overall, this decreases the congestion on the ground level of the site, responds to the need for gathering spaces, and provides a more three-dimensional pedestrian experience as opposed to the flat urban fabric of the current area."

Student: Dalia Qasem

Course: ARCH 502, Architectural Design Studio X

Email: D[email protected]

Honorable Mention: A Child's Place by  Klara Bekhet

"A Child's Place proposes a residential building typology that challenges the current standalone towers present in Dubai with a focus on how children perceive and react to residential spaces cognitively, physically and emotionally. The proposed project takes inspiration from the traditional Sha'biyaat housing.

"It tackles three main design approaches an abundance of communal spaces for frequent interaction between the children, the rejection of the vertical void created by elevator-dependent multi-story buildings, and the importance of child-scale for the younger residents to be able to perceive their homes and surrounding.

"The project aims to provide 'homes' rather than transitory sellable units, encouraging children to form a sense of place attachment to these spaces and the city of Dubai."

Student: Klara Bekhet

Course: ARCH 502, Architectural Design Studio X

Email: [email protected]

Honourable Mention: Bridging The Gap by Zinah Al Asad

"Internally displaced people (IDPs) are continuously being viewed as a threat to a host society's security, history, and cultural relationships, and are therefore excluded and restrained.

"The objective is to gradually merge IDPs into the urban fabric of their host city, rather than exclude them. Here, architecture creates a physical bond between the host society and the 'new society', the IDPs, and creates a link between the two histories. Moreover, it allows them to benefit society and themselves through the incorporation of self-build structures.

"The project comes to life through a continuous path that physically connects the three different plots while occasionally becoming the roof of recessed volumes. The path starts from an archaeological site to a final site of a refugee accommodation, with an intermediate museum in the second plot."

Student: Zinah Al Asad

Course: ARCH 502, Architectural Design Studio X

Email: [email protected]

Sustainable Design Award: Plantae Tower by Basant Abdelrahman