Site Selection

Following the site criteria outlined in the previous post, two sites come to the fore that are easily reached on foot from a migrant workers' housing area, are on/near the median line, and would make any project built there quite visible. Both are located on the northeastern end of al-Waab Street, the majority of which defines the median line.

Al-Waab St is a very wide arterial street added to Doha's streetscape to act as a processional axis during the 2006 Asian Games. Al-Waab terminates at the Aspire Sports Complex, which also includes a large park and a mall, the Villagio, both in blue as major public areas in the initial mapping. The street is defined by its unique streetlights, specifically designed to highlight the street literally and figuratively for the Asian Games.

Due to the difficulty (if not danger to life and limb) in crossing al-Waab Street due to heavy vehicular use, I stuck to sites on the southern side, near to the workers' housing area.





Two potential sites are mapped here, one much larger site and a second smaller site broken into two corner lots a block farther down al-Waab. The sites are highlighted in light blue (Villagio and Aspire Park are in the darker tones).

 The first site is located at the very end of al-Waab Street, where it turns into the previously existing street fabric. There is existing construction on site that may be problematic for further development.

It is a very large site with the added bonus of being the closer of the two to the migrant workers' housing. Also, as can be seen from the map above, the site is located next to a major Friday worker's area- in this case, the parking lot of Doha's premier football (soccer) club's stadium, weekly used for round-robin cricket tournaments (zoom in to the picture below).

 

The second site is much smaller, and is about a block longer walk from the workers' housing, but has the advantage of two corner lots that may be able to be developed in tandem.

While the two corner lots could make for an interesting condition to work with, the volume of traffic in the intervening street (zoom into aerial at right) may nullify any benefit, especially if the program is leaning towards a pedestrian emphasis.




While the two sites have their respective benefits, the first seems to me to be pretty obviously the more attractive one to work with, both for reasons of scale and proximity to housing and a Friday area. Existing development may have progressed quite a bit since this aerial was taken, so a back up probably isn't a bad idea.