| Category | Retail |
|---|---|
| Year | 2017 |
| Size | 330,800sqm |
Projects
Doha Festival City Mall
The Retail Hub of Qatar
Sitting on some 43 hectares and located about 15km north of the downtown district, Doha Festival City comprises a retail and entertainment hub complete with hospitality and business facilities, a theme park, and motor showrooms. The Doha Festival City Mall, with 500 retail stores and a gross floor area of 327, 000sqm, is the largest component of the development. The scale of the project and the immediate surrounds inspired the design concept of creating an extension of the vast desert site.
Details
The strategy was to create focal points at each entrance, all of which lie along the west-facing façade. Sand-coloured pre-cast concrete panels constitute the main façade element. Each entrance is then designed as a prominent volume extrusion which was envisioned as a structure emerging from the desert land. The design concept extends to the exterior plaza where a sense of arrival and outdoor activities were incorporated with landscaping designed as a structured arid desert.
It was essential to the concept to have a simple yet provocative exterior which paid homage to the desert and could also complement the more intricately designed interior concourse of the mall.
The interior planning challenge was to breakdown the massive scale of the mall and intrigue the shoppers to keep them moving. Four main zones were created with the intention of characterising specific retail segments of the mall. The largest of the four zones, Luxury Fashion, is designed as a circular atrium with a dome-shaped feature ceiling. The space is accentuated by natural light from high level windows on which the dome is elevated. The other three zones – Centre Court, Entertainment Centre and Market Place – are similarly distinguished by simple geometric shapes and characterised by different themes making them clearly identifiable.
Specialist Services
Integrated services provided for this project.