As Doha paves its way into becoming a major metropolitan area by 2030, it takes on the parallel challenge of achieving 70% food security over a ten year plan starting in 2013. By designating one-third of the metropolitan area as a greenbelt zone dedicated to farming and food production, Qatar seeks to transform the arid desert landscape surrounding its capital city into a prosperous food production machine able to sustain its future self-sufficiency target.
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Strategically located along the edge of the Vision 2030 Greenbelt, the proposed masterplan aims to re-qualify the relationship between the urban context and its periphery where new polarities would emerge and develop. Umm Abirieh Farm offers a prototype for the development of a unique generation of farms under this special condition: a condition where food production and leisure are in balance.
The proposal transforms 42 ha of uncultivated land, at the edge of a small town 30 km north of Doha, into an alternative farm typology conceived as a breathing threshold composed of a succession of specific layers offering active health, cultural and community facilities revolving around farming and food production.
The program was developed after much consideration of the existing context and the potentials of the site for both the local community and the larger metropolitan population. In keeping with the agricultural heritage of the area and the theme of the “retreat”, it offers cultural facilities that coincide with basic needs focusing on the preservation of agricultural heritage and the introduction of the ‘Istirahat’, a local family retreat typology.
The program is organised in a matrix where strips oriented North-South define built and open programs while bands oriented East-West identify user experience. The intersection of the two gives way to a series of unique cells and triggers a process of exchange and synergy among the various layers generating a condition of mutual benefit and aiming to achieve a socially, economically and environmentally sustainable development.
