A blanket-like roof of perforated concrete covers the Al-Mujadilah Centre and Mosque for Ladies in Qatar, which has been accomplished by American studio Diller Scofidio + Renfro.
Positioned in Doha’s Training Metropolis, Al-Mujadilah – that means “she who engages in dialogue” – combines social and academic areas with the primary purpose-built up to date mosque for girls within the Muslim world.
The 4,600-square-metre centre attracts on the mosque’s position as not solely a spiritual area however an academic and civic one, which Diller Scofidio + Renfro sought to replicate in its architectural kind.

“The mosque’s position of seamlessly bringing collectively worship and examine underneath one roof led to the constructing’s distinguishing architectural characteristic,” defined studio co-founder Elizabeth Diller.
“Its undulating roof arches to form a grand area for prayer at one finish and morphs downward right into a slung floor that shelters an intimate area for schooling on the different,” she continued.
“As a lady, the challenge was a particular alternative for me to design an area solely for girls that’s versatile and conscious of real-time, on a regular basis wants.”

The principle corridor, which has been rotated 17 levels off-axis to face Mecca, is illuminated by a piece of the concrete roof that’s perforated with 5 thousand small gentle tunnels, offering diffuse gentle whereas minimising warmth acquire.
On the ground, a big carpet includes a pixellated design that was created by scaling up a standard prayer mat to be 35-by-20-metres in dimension, offering sufficient area for as much as 750 worshippers.
Alongside the qibla wall, denoting the course of Mecca, the normal mihrab or area of interest is reinterpreted as a gently undulating part of wall illuminated by a skylight.

“The roof harvests diffuse, elegant daylight from a subject of sunshine wells whereas minimising warmth acquire from Doha’s sturdy solar,” stated Diller.
“The design was additionally impressed by Islamic artwork and structure through which abstraction serves to symbolize the transcendent nature of the divine,” she continued.
Separating the prayer corridor from the academic area is a round, open-topped courtyard on the centre of the constructing, which incorporates two olive timber and is wrapped by glass partitions, serving to to drag additional diffuse gentle into the interiors.
Picket bookcases line the sides of each the prayer corridor and academic area, the place they’re accompanied by desk areas and a raised stage, in addition to extra secluded seating areas and rooms across the centre’s edge.

Exterior, a standard minaret has been changed with a sculptural, cigar-shaped kind supported by tensile metal cables subsequent to the centre’s southern entrance.
Wrapped in steel mesh perforated with patterns that reference conventional mashrabiya screens, this tall construction incorporates mechanised audio system that stand up the tower to ship the decision to prayer.
Elsewhere, Diller Scofidio + Renfro not too long ago opened the V&A Storehouse in London, a brand new mannequin for publicly-accessible museum storage, and in Venice the studio was awarded the Golden Lion for its Canal Café challenge, which made espresso from lagoon water.
The images is by Iwan Baan.
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