Category

Urban

Barrak Al-Babtain 2
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NeighborhoodUrban
April 29, 2010

Kuwait City Transect

A transect shows a sequence of progression through the increasing density of a city from the rural areas to the urban core. Transportation, landscape and ecology, buildings, setbacks and all the details of life should vary across the transect. "The importance of transect planning is…
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Barrak Al-Babtain 7
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NeighborhoodQortubaUrban
April 21, 2010

Anonymous Neighbors

I admit that the following exercise is almost comically biased, but I think it serves well to illustrate the point i'm always trying to make. People have become anonymous within their own neighborhoods and mosques have become the only place where a strong sense of…
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Barrak Al-Babtain 4
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SAM StreetUrban
March 27, 2010

Taking Over Freeways

This is an urban renewal proposal in Los Angeles that, although at a much grander scale, is similar to what we want for SAM Street. The idea is to literally cover a portion of sunken freeway with a large park. "Plans to develop four so-called…
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Barrak Al-Babtain 19
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ArchitectureQortubaUrban
February 28, 2010

Fences

Why are Arab architects and engineers obsessed with fences? There's always a big fence surrounding every building, usually around the site perimeter. I can understand a fence around a prison, maybe a zoo, but why everywhere? What's the point? It don't think security is a…
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Barrak Al-Babtain 3
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SAM StreetUrban
February 23, 2010

SAM Street: Winter only?

Mayor Bloomberg just announced that the Times Square pedestrian pilot project will become permanent. This means that it's now a completely pedestrian only street all year round from now on. This is great for tourism and public health and safety. They'll start designing permanent landscape architecture…
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Barrak Al-Babtain 8
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Neighborhood
February 22, 2010

Qortuba Public Park

I shot that video today walking through the park. It's just as filthy as when I last saw it. It's a shame, because the park itself is pretty decent. You can hear the birds and the trees are healthy. What would it take for the…
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Barrak Al-Babtain 4
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NeighborhoodUrban
February 21, 2010

Wasted Space

A wonderfully simple video about efforts to retrofit suburbia. There are a few things we can take that apply to Kuwait. We don't have the problem of having to 'fill in' the gaps, because most of our suburbs are very densely packed. The thing I…
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Barrak Al-Babtain 11
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NeighborhoodQortuba
February 18, 2010

Facebook Activism

I was strolling through Qortuba Public Park this afternoon. The place is actually pretty decent, there's a fair amount of benches and lots of trees and grass. The problem is that it was filthy. There was litter everywhere. The bathrooms were disgraceful. The security guard…
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Barrak Al-Babtain 5
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QortubaUrban
February 14, 2010

Qortuba Block 2

I'm going to try a quick redesign of Qortuba Block 2. First, here it is as is: I'm going to restrict myself into not altering the inlets to Qortuba, and leave the institutional buildings on the main road as they are. What I can change…
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Barrak Al-Babtain 9
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Architecture
February 9, 2010

An Arrogant Architect

Building on Jasem's post a few days ago, i'd like to talk further about the responsibilities of an architect in Kuwait and the perception people have of our profession. Here are a few of the comments from that post: "Another problem we have here (this…
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