Design of the Ideal Residence for the Guests of the Holy Mecca
Two Iranian consulting offices in the professional section, and one Iranian student team in the student section, took high prizes in the international competition “Design of the Ideal Residence for the Guests of the Holy Mecca.” The competition was announced in 1997; submissions (after two extensions) were delivered to the organisers by 30 December 1998; and the jury's final verdict was announced in September 1999. More than 160 entrants from some forty countries registered for the competition, but the jury ultimately judged 34 submissions in the professional section and 14 in the student section.
From the entries received in the professional section, the international jury named four winning schemes — two of them by Iranian architects. In the student section the jury named five winning schemes, one of them from an Iranian team. The third professional prize went to ASAR Consulting Architects & Planners (Iran), and the scheme by Shahvand Yousefiezadeh (Arshikam Consulting Engineers) received a jury Honourable Mention. The second prize in the student section went to Maghsoud Ebrahimzadeh of Islamic Azad University, Tabriz. The first and second professional prizes were awarded to entrants from Turkey and Egypt, respectively.
The competition programme
The international competition aimed to provide temporary housing for 100,000 pilgrims, with all ancillary facilities. The project site covered more than 200,000 m², with several residential typologies, commercial, religious, service and circulation zones. Organising the complex operations of lodging, service, movement and rites for 100,000 pilgrims during the short duration of the Hajj rituals was the project's central theme. The programme called for three- to four-bed rooms as separate units with their own services (serving 15-20 persons each, max. 4 m² per person), and group (ward-type) units for 20-30 persons with their own services. In addition it required a main mosque and prayer hall, a commercial centre, administration, security and tourist-reception offices, a medical and pharmacy wing, restaurant, cafeteria and kitchens, exchange office, supermarket and further service units, entrance lobbies, waiting halls and circulation; plus office, maintenance, police, guard, doorman and kitchen staff amenities; floor-level laundries, first-aid, religious guidance, post, telephones; lifts, central air-conditioning, fire alarm and suppression, solar and electric water-heaters, electrical rooms, emergency generators, pump rooms, water tanks, a central telephone network, public address, floor rubbish chutes, garbage stores, and basement and outdoor parking for cars and buses. A master plan had to locate the main mosque, park, tower, public-transport stops, central services, parking, open spaces, infrastructure and the ground-floor retail, as well as water features, plazas, restaurants, tea houses, rest stops, the main circulation routes, and a monumental entrance gate that would serve as a city landmark for Mecca. An 80-metre tower with a water tank and a revolving restaurant on top was also to be designed.
Jury priorities: the difference between pilgrimage housing and ordinary housing (the site is used intensively only for the few days of Hajj and must remain flexible for other uses the rest of the year, including minor pilgrimage and short-term stays); clear circulation throughout the project and rapid access from residences to vehicles for travel to the holy sites; quiet spaces for retreat in the middle of congestion; natural ventilation and controlled use of sunlight; water-efficient landscape; and capacity to absorb the huge peak crowds.
Prizes. Professional: 1st USD 50,000; 2nd USD 30,000; 3rd USD 20,000. Student: 1st USD 8,000; 2nd USD 4,000; 3rd USD 3,000. Plus five USD 500 citations for further projects.
Professional 3rd prize — ASAR Consulting Architects & Planners (Iran)
Design team: Project manager Ahmad Abrishami; design manager Kourosh Rafiey; coordination Shervin Abrishami; architectural team Foad Sinaei, Zein-al-abedin Banaee, Mani Imani; computer services Arman Mossadeghi, Faramarz Niakan, Kourosh Golnabi, Hamid Eftekhari; structural team Mohammad Shemshadi, Mani Abrishami; graphic designer Hossein Shahrabi. Jury comment: “The strength of this scheme lies in its functional organisation and the articulation of movement patterns to and from the residential units. Sensitive design details, such as the inclusion of galleries in the residential blocks, break down the monotony of a highly functional design and improve access to the clusters of residential suites. Public spaces, particularly the area around the main mosque, provide a strong organisational structure and an attractive contrast to the background of the residential component.”
Jury Honourable Mention — Shahvand Yousefiezadeh (Arshikam Consulting Engineers)
Assistants: Hamed Sadeghzadeh, Ebrahim Tavana (design); Azin Moalej, Hamid Reza Naser Nasir (research); Maryam Haj-Hosseinali, Amir Abbas Shirazi, Arash Afshar Ahmadi (CAD); translator Shadi Ardalan. Scheme: the overall form is a monument inspired by the host landscape — the desert, the soft lines of mountains and hills, and in origin its tents; its placement as a ‘land mark’ among the cubic urban masses is an homage to the symbolic values and visual qualities of the Hijaz region. The architectural framework of this free volumetric form was arrived at in four steps: (1) the creation of one centre as a great elliptical plaza; (2) four large parallel east-west cuts that establish the complex's main circulation routes and divide it into five principal functional zones; (3) a series of deep incisions along bounding planes influenced by two poles affecting the site — Mount Tur to the north and the Kaaba to the south-west — arranged in plan and in space; (4) a series of parallel, narrow openings in horizontal and longitudinal forms that carry light and air circulation into the innermost functional parts of the mass. The great elliptical opening — with its multi-dimensional capacity, and by virtue of its position within the volume next to the commercial spine and the residential blocks — functions as a plaza; and when covered during prayer by a large tent canopy supported on a tall minaret carrying the tension structure, it becomes a mosque that recalls the form and scale of Islam's first mosque. Jury report: “In spite of an often less than clear demonstration of its ability to meet programmatic requirements, this project is a daring, courageous attempt to explore new architectural forms in a traditional environment. Its attempt to avoid a traditional architectural solution and return to ‘natural’ forms resulted in an exciting conceptual proposal that, in the jury's opinion, could have been developed into a workable project.”
Student 2nd prize — Maghsoud Ebrahimzadeh (Azad Islamic University, Tabriz)
Consultant: Kazem Firouzmand; collaborators Samad Pour Mousavi, Mohammad Taghi Safari; computer drawings Ali Hamidi, Hamed Asl-zad; supervisor Dr Manouchehr Mazini. Principal idea: de-centralisation. Accommodating and moving 100,000 pilgrims requires appropriate site strategies; channelling that population into one limited fore-space and through a single path would produce severe bottlenecks. In this scheme access to the complex is decentralised, via multiple entries, using a main entry axis and the lifts and stairs of each block. Two deck levels: (a) Lower deck — the slope produced by the flexing of this deck on the west side allows pedestrian access; its main function is the complex's park, integrated with vehicular routes, lifts and stairs of residential units, bus stops, light- and heavy-vehicle parking, loading docks and central services. The park's ceiling height varies from 4 to 14 m across the sloped site. (b) Upper deck — the main pedestrian route from which pilgrims reach the residential blocks, with a route for permitted emergency vehicles (ambulance, police, fire). Jury report: “This highly imaginative design explores the utilisation of new architectural forms. The site plan is well thought out and handles pilgrim movements satisfactorily. The building forms would have benefited from a more detailed exploration of the range of residential accommodations required by the programme. The jury expressed its appreciation of the imaginative mix of computer-generated and more traditional media in the presentation.”
Full competition information is available at the Mehraz website: www.Avand.net/Mehraz/awards/awards.htm · E-mail: Mehraz@Avand.net
