Urban pocket

Doha 2016

 

The existing graveyard located at the heart of the old city in Doha, is fenced, isolated from the residential fabric and the community.

 

Proposal is to opens it up, addressing it with a lightweight structure/platform that gracefully floats above the graveyard and rises up towards the centre, creating a new public square for the neighborhood.

 

The celebration of the graveyard site is a symbol to remember those who built Doha, and a statement of the parallel existence of Life and death which goes in parallel with the tension between the old and new architecture at the city of Doha, the struggle to keep heritage and to accommodate the new life.

 

A Sidra tree is to be planted at the centre, symbolizing the growth from death, continuity and cycle of life.  The tree grows in harsh environments, and symbolizes persistence, determination.