Zone 18 Public Realm Upgrade

Downtown Doha Capital Precinct includes the city’s most prominent landmarks. The area acts both as a destination and a transitional area; currently challenged by lack of public realm and street activation. Our design solution achieved four objectives: strengthening of the road network – by finding new connections and improving old ones; provision of new sidewalks, bicycle lanes and shading trees; activation of ground floors with arcaded spaces; and provision of civic and park spaces.

This part of historic Doha is heavily developed and hence, retrofit rather than top-down approach was important to this project. Besides more obvious connections across the site, we found several opportunities to enliven in-between spaces, with very little intervention; thus creating opportunities for incremental fixes that can catalyse the overall process. Six guiding principles spearheaded the urban solutions and amassed a multi-layered response that gave actual shape and identity to an important, yet struggling area of Doha.