Category: Design

The Al Seif strip had cool colorful stairs covered with graffiti on both sides and it had a lot of character. It was a bit gritty but it was real and people used to go and take photos in front of the walls and it was one of those “instagrammable” spots. Then one day someone decided that the stairs needed renovating and they ended up painting over all the graffiti and turning it into normal boring stairs again with white walls covered with black splatters. It looked terrible.

But, the colors are now coming back because the walls are currently being repainted again by the artist @oat.here. They’re still not finished but it already looks 100x better as you can see in the photo above.

There is this beautiful building I’ve walked and driven by for years and had always been curious to how it looked like inside. It’s located in the area behind Scientific Center and it was an old palace. Blogger Maha Alessa along with photographer Bedour AlAwadhi managed to get access to the palace and take some photos. Sadly the photos are a bit abstract and leaning towards the artistic side instead of journalistic so you can’t see much. A bit of a missed opportunity so I’ll see if I can get permission to visit the place and take photos myself. For now though you can check out the photos they took by clicking here or viewing Maha’s Instagram story here.

The Touristic Enterprises Company (TEC) is planning to renovate Messilah Beach from the ground up. The club first opened in the late 1980’s and I’ve been to it a few times back in the 90s when I was still in school but haven’t really been there since so don’t really have any attachment to the place.

The new renovated Messilah will contain:
6 Restaurant blocks
Swimming Pool and Wet Recreation areas
Jogging Track
Hard and Soft Landscaping
450 Car Parking spaces

No start or completion date was mentioned but you can check out more renderings of the beach here.

Also found the picture below of the club I’m guessing from the 80s or 90s which I thought looked cool.

Thanks lovelykuwait

The new extension of Al Shaheed Park is currently under construction and will include a variety of new activities including:

Mountains playground
Maze garden
Outdoor skate and BMX park
Outdoor parkour and sky trail
Karting
Extreme sports building
Ice skating rink and snow park
Indoor Skydiving

The renderings in this post show the new ice skating rink, the indoor karting track and snow park. Our landmark ice skating rink was demolished earlier this year to make way for the new generic ice skating rink, and Discovery Mall is also meant to be demolished next, although nobody is gonna miss that. Check out my previous post on the new extension here.

Thanks Lovelykuwait

Al Fintas “Marasi” is a project that includes more than 1.8KM of developed facilities that include shops, restaurants, cinemas, a hotel and a large marina.

The Fintas Marinas project aims to be the leading marine destination on the coast of the State of Kuwait

The Fintas Marinas project includes more than 1.8 km of developed facilities that will provide unprecedented entertainment and commercial experiences, as 800 floating moorings for boats and mega yachts will be provided, and 1,200 multi-role stands for small boats, fishing and picnic boats, attached to an integrated yachting club, 5-star hotel and conference center On an island located in the middle of the project.

An equivalent of 200,000 square meters of recreational and commercial spaces will be developed throughout the marina, which will attract residents and visitors to enjoy the lifestyle of the marina and at the same time enable them to take advantage of other commercial and entertainment activities such as shops, restaurants, cinemas, cultural events and the botanical garden. All project components will be implemented using the principle of “one climate under one roof”, to ensure a comfortable environment for visitors during all seasons. The Fintas Marinas project includes a nautical club as well as yacht repair and maintenance workshops dedicated to serving all yacht owners.

A smart transportation strategy has also been prepared to ensure a smooth transition within the project, which includes car parks in the basement with a capacity of 6000 cars, provision of service logistical spaces behind commercial areas, and the implementation of an upgraded railway to transport visitors between the components of the project in a flexible manner, and a VIP entrance has also been allocated. It has direct access to the waterfront.

Marassi Fintas is a unique destination in Kuwait that can be accessed from land or sea. The project will also provide many investment opportunities for owners of small and medium enterprises.

The concept looks really interesting but couldn’t find much information on it online other than this video presentation and a short Arabic description under the video which I posted above translated using Google.

Thanks lovelykuwait

I managed to get my hands on renderings of Al Shaheed Park 3. The two in this post are final versions but I also have some more renderings and pages which I’m waiting on a confirmation to share. One new bit of information I found, the new phase of Al Shaheed Park will have an indoor skydiving facility that will be part of the Extreme Sports Building.

If you missed my previous post on Al Shaheed Park Phase 3 you can check it out here. Once I get approval to share the other images and renderings I’ll post them here. For now you can check out the larger version of the renderings above with these links:

Park Render 1
Park Render 2

Thanks Dragos and A

The photo above is of a new bus stop that has been developed by the Kuwait Public Transport Company and features solar air conditioning to keep waiting passengers cool in the summer as well as warm and dry in the winter.

Looks ok I guess but can we please not use beige and go with blue like my mockup above? Our original bus stops were blue and it adds a bit of color to an already very beige environment. For more pictures of the bus stop check out @kuwaitcommute

A friend of mine was set to open a ceramics design studio called From Mud before the pandemic hit and now is forced to push back the opening date.

In the meantime, she’s decided to put together a “Clay at Home” starter kit for people looking for a new hobby to get into, or a fun activity to stay entertained with at home. If you’re interested, check out her instagram account for more details @frommud

The Ministry of Interior have updated their eServices platform and I think it looks great! The new site is smoother and faster than the previous version and also works really well on mobile devices. Check it out here.

Completed all the way back in 2003, the Villa Moda department store in the Free Trade Zone was way ahead of its time. The building still stands there today but isn’t currently being used although a few years ago I heard a TV station or newspaper was going to take it over.

The owner of Villa Moda was the fashion entrepreneur, Sheikh Majed Al-Sabah who had a vision for a state-of-the-art retail experience. The exterior was designed by Italian architect Pierfrancesco Cravel who came up with the idea of creating the giant glass shell that mimicked the shipping containers in the port nearby. The 12-meter high steel poles in front of the building represented ship masts while sails were used in the parking lot to protect vehicles from the sun.

When Tyler Brûlé, the founder of Wallpaper* magazine heard Sheikh Majed was developing a new department store for luxury brands in Kuwait, he recommended he work with the London based interior designers Eldridge Smerin.

Eldridge Smerin were responsible for the design of Villa Moda’s main entrance area and lounge, public spaces and staircases, two levels of multi-brand fashion space, restaurant and café managed by @capriceholdingsrestaurants, as well as the landscaping around the building.

Villa Moda opened its doors in 2003 housing brands like Gucci, Prada, Bottega Veneta, Salvatore Ferragamo, Fendi, Etro and more. The total duration of the project from conceptual design to construction completion was impressively, less than a year.

For more photos of Villa Moda click here.

The original Villa Moda is still standing and was also ahead of its time (pictured below). The original Villa Moda was located on the Gulf Road opposite where Chilis used to be. Not sure when it opened but I remember going there back in the 90s.

Update: This post has been updated with more precise information. Also the Villa Moda building has now been demolished.

Last week STC (formally VIVA) launched their new brand but someone just sent me a link to a company called CTS who oddly have a very similar logo (and letters coincidently). It could be a direct copy or just a big coincidence but either way still very interesting.

Update: STC branding was done by Interbrand.

If you’re itching to buy an interesting book about Kuwait, this is one that came out in 2008 but copies of are still available online. The book deals with the construction of the Kuwait National Assembly building that was designed by Jørn Utzon who was also behind the design of the Sydney Opera House.

Completed in 1982, the Kuwait National Assembly remains one of the outstanding modern buildings completed in the Middle East by a European architect. A tour de force of precast concrete construction, Jørn Utzon’s design also represents the culmination of themes that had preoccupied him throughout his work, notably ways of combining ideas derived from traditional cultures with the ‘additive’ principles of cellular growth found in nature. This beautifully produced book, the latest addition to Edition Bløndal’s acclaimed ‘Utzon Logbook’ series, was developed in close collaboration with Utzon and presents an exceptionally comprehensive account of the Kuwait project through photographs, original drawings and the recollections of key contributors – Utzon’s staff, consulting engineers and contractor, and an extended interview with Utzon himself.

If you check out the publisher’s website they have two videos taken during construction which I had never seen before. You can check those out here.

If you want to buy the book I got my copy from Amazon for $69.

OMA, the legendary architectural firm based in Rotterdam has won the design for a tower that will be located in the new Hessa Al Mubarak District. I actually passed by their offices in Rotterdam years ago because I was hoping to get one of my books signed by one of the founders, Rem Koolhaas. When completed the Wafra Tower will be the first project by OMA in Kuwait.

The tower looks great and all but the seafront design in their renderings grabbed my attention more than the tower honestly. Their interpretation of our Gulf Road is way nicer in their renderings than what we have in reality.

For more details on this project click here.

The other day while picking up food from MEAT in Al-Seif I noticed the colorful graffiti-filled stairs next door was closed off. Turns out the stairs is being renovated and this is the text they had on the hoarding describing the project (yes I typed it out):

Al-Seif Staircase #s25k is a project sponsored by the Kuwait Amiri Diwan and donated by Tamdeen Group. It emerges as an initiative by Parallel Design Studio to restore the area that has witnessed significant contribution to cumulative Kuwait history given its heritage and ingenuity so that it contributes once and again to the consolidation and renewal of dialogue between generations.

Al-Seif Staircase #s25k design intent evolves beyond a morphological statement, to which serving the passing by dwellers from level to another. It seeks to highlight the main concept of urban design, which is to draw attention to this particular area as a semantic symbol of the rehabilitation and renovation efforts of the private sector in collaboration with the Kuwaiti Government and to strengthen the advanced social and urban status thus far accomplished by the State of Kuwait while retaining the legacy of the all original past. The main design approach in a geopolitical understanding is to call out for a renovating dialogue, to enhance a social situation where the evidence of the public realm is very highly assertive, this creates a means of instruments enclosing yet democratize a privilege of social proximity and content of vitality.

In a morphological manner of the stair design, it weave a series of faceted geometrical characters that cascades between levels as an evidence of order and balance for an intrinsic aesthetical appearance, on the other hand a nostalgia and a recall to the sense of place where a remaining of materials is set as a viable option by the architect to be re-used and recycled in the content of the staircase design. Moving from linear progression to a faceted discipline is evidence of a transitional transformation of a too platonic geometry to a threshold of clarity of various immersive elements cascades through levels. The seating on the sides of the stair act as a discipline of appreciation and serenity to the old demographic ages and those who want to spend quality time. Above and beyond the definition of a stair, storytelling to encroach appreciation and a triumphal perception to the new design.

I honestly didn’t understand anything from their description above, but going by the rendering, it looks like the stairs are getting a redesign and there will be seating integrated into the steps. I hope they’ll still allow graffiti on the walls once the project is done since it’s what made that stairs fun and special to begin with.

Last week the Ministry of Electricity and Water rebranded and you can see their new logo above. I kinda liked the old logo, probably because I grew up with it and as a kid. The new logo feels a lot more generic and I kinda wish they had just facelifted the original logo slightly.

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A post shared by وزارة الكهرباء والماء والطاقة المتجددة 🇰🇼 (@mew_kuwait)

On a side note, I just visited the website of the Ministry of Electricity and Water to see if I could find info on the new logo and realized they don’t have an English section. Has that always been the case? I don’t pay for electricity but I’m assuming there are non-Arabic speaking expats that do?

via Reddit