m.a.r.j.a.n... c.o.l.l.e.t.t.i...
Digitality & Poetics
Postdigitality & Neobaroque
Hybridity & Transdisciplinarity
DUNES
marcosandmarjan, 2008
DUNES
Client (DAMAC) Concept Design Proposal for a Sales Centre – Garden Heights, Cairo, Egypt 2008 (second place)
Design team: marcosandmarjan;
Collaboration: Tim Culverhouse, Justin Lau, Damjan Iliev, Haroon Iqbal, Abdur Razzak, Arvind Varsani, Heba Layas
Area schedule: total Plot Area 12,000 Sq.Mt - 129,168 Sq.Ft, recommended BUA - up to 5000 Sq.Mt - 53,820 Sq.Ft
1. Main event hall.
2. Marketing tools, models display and show room.
3. Sales offices.
4. Dedicated open space for 1:1 model homes.
5. Administration (open office space).
6. Services and stores.
Parking requirements: 75 car lots
Landscape requirements: design should mix the external areas with the interiors in order to accommodate outdoor activities.
The sales centre is located in the heart of the 6.000.000 m2 Garden Heights’ development in Cairo. It aims to accommodate DAMAC’s new sales and admin team in Egypt. It accommodates a main events hall; a multipurpose hall; marketing tools, models display and show room; sales offices; dedicated open space for 1:2 model homes; administration (open office space); and services and stores.
The building is conceived as an iconic sales centre that borrows its concept from emblematic figures of the Egyptian culture: the dune and the carpet. From the outside the building resembles an inhabitable sand dune of smooth and sophisticated contours. With its futuristic look, the building strongly varies according to the position of the viewer from the outside.
The inside is characterised by a large undulating surface, which hosts all major public spaces on different levels of the ground floor, including the entrance lobby, main events hall, showroom, several lounges, and multipurpose hall. This ground surface is conceived as a large three-dimensional carpet that is punctuated by a series of steps and platforms on which the visitors meanders from space to space, discovering the grandeur of the centre’s interior. This artificial topography allows various circulation routes through the building: fast (for the employees), medium (for the general public and events guests), and slow (for the buyer).
It also links smoothly to the exterior landscape in front and at the back of the building: overall, the building mixes external and interior spaces in a building-landscape continuum. It proposes the extension of several internal areas, such as the cafeteria and main events hall to the outside, in particular accommodating temporary outdoor activities during special festivities and presentations.