office interior design riyadh

the lecturer tonight is karim moussawer. wewill read a little bit of this so we get everything on the transcription, although i have knownhim for 15 years, i don't really have to do this.karim moussawer, assoc. aia is el seif global travelstudio professor at syracuse architecture thissemester. moussawer graduated from thesouthern california institute of architecturethat is where i met him many years ago. and also graduated in beirut. his item paralxwon many awards. that is how i came to rediscover him and his work. he's located in but ret.where he founded paralx, an

architecture and designpractice that’s currently engaged in projects ofdifferent types and scales in the middle east region.his projects in dubai, some in saudi arabia and a number of projects in beirut. he willshow work from the studio and talk about that. paralx signifiescollaborative work—has won several international designawards within just few years of its establishment,including merit and citation awards from the aia. priorto moving to los angeles, karim moussawer earned hisarchitectural degree from

the acadã©mie libanaisedes beaux arts in beirut. karim moussawer’s lecturewill highlight the work of the area and the region. join me in welcomingkarim moussawer. [applause]>> thanks. thank you, michael, thank you, everyone. i'mvery happy to be here. paralx as michael said parallel practice, work, and participation.i will show you what we have been up to lately. these are just two cities i'm going to betalking about. from physical barrier to virtual enclave, this is to go back a little bit inhistory, beirut is known for the civil war that occurred for over 15, 17 years. and duringthat time, it was divided into predominantly

christians living in the east side and mainlymuslim community on the west side. and the first project i'm going to talk about is thebeirut digital district. it is located by the green line that used to separate two cities.basically beirut digital district is a hub or like a community that started maybe 2010or 2011, to house the ict community, startups, firms, anything related to technology is goingto go there. they're calling it like the silicon valley of beirut or lebanon.what is interesting though, other than after the war is the postwar division, basically,we had the physical separation and now it is a virtual ghettos or enclaves that werecreated during the postwar years, you don't see any division at all, you can just feeland see signs of different factions or groups

that occupy these territories.so you see also, the district is located among one of the hottest of the enclaves. the developmentin the postwar years were much concentrated on the coastal line, mainly the private effortversus any real public work. that is a view from the district looking at downtown andoriented to the west. when it comes to public spaces, the same thing.there is almost no interest from the government and in public spaces and really the main themain park there, it is the pine park or the beirut pine park, it basically has been recentlyrenovated by a fund from the french government. and it is closed to public. so another parkinside the west side of the city was renovated and developed by a private company, now ithas a private security and gated. it is like

times to go in and out. you know, a majordevelopment on the coast, it is like kind of waterfront f and b outlets, hanging outplaces. also developed by a private company. it is the company that renovated the downtownarea after the war. bdd master plan is what we were met with.when we met the client, we had a master plan that ignored few of the structures on thesite. one is an old church from the 1800s. the other one is an old house, which is likea very traditional, in terms of architectural language. so we thought just to add this tothe plan and add a value and integrate the structure inside the project, and basically,just to relate a little bit to the map that you have seen this is the west and this isthe east side. we generates the masses based

on the zoning code and the grid line we identified.and basically, one of the main things we're focusing on in the public space and greenareas we're calling piazzas. we didn't want the public space to be concentrated in onearea. but rather, it just flows on to the next block and the block further south, andthe idea of this is to create an openness that kind of contradicts with the divisionthat the war have had over the years. and it symbolizes more of a sense of a conversionrather than this division. so with these, this is a plan that was supposed to be builtby 2022, but with all the actions that's happening around the area in general, it has pushednow to pushed back to 2030. so once it's built, it will basically look like that.we emphasize on the open green area, by utilizing

the layer on top of the roof, so we can multiplythose area and show how important they are for the neighborhood. and once built, it isquite a mix, mainly going to be like those offices, but it will have a lot of residentialthat will mainly be the tenant of the bdd district.in addition to some hospitality project. up until this moment, the district was made outof renovated buildings that were retrofitted into office spaces. until the 1227, this isthe bdd1227, this is the first ground up project. the first project started, it started withthe north block. and basically, it was like an invited competition. this lot is ownedby the endowment of the catholic church. and the developer of bdd was worried that if theseguys would build later they wouldn't have

control over what, you know, they will havelooking over the bdd master plan. so they went into some kind of venture where the bddguys will make these project and just operate it for some time and split the area in between.so the challenge really here was how to make a building that looks like it belongs to themaster plan. but it has a different legal boundaries, which are these. so, you know,by code, you can't open to your neighbor. you have to step back. and you have some kindof a building envelope that you have to kind of follow. so by taking the building extrusionand the building envelope, we started carving with this in block and creating this courtyardto legally get the natural light for the offices and creating an access from the site. so thisis basically where the master plan is. and

this is the north side. and the services ofcutting and carving and introducing some outdoor areas, that there is something about the weather.it is kind of pleasant weather over there, you have like almost 300 sunny days per week.the outdoor area is important. this is how the components of the project are, so it isfrom the envelope, the solid, the void that was carved out and the amenities or outdoorareas. the other thing the client wanted to havewas to create the office spaces that really respond to what a digital district want tobe. this transparency, encouraging the exchange between the startups. this was an importantfactor in their decision. once we got the competition and started developing the project,we were applying the french fire code as we

applied for the permit. that required a solidarea between the floors. the whole idea with the concept we had would not work, really.so we looked at a system that we employ on the facade where we can blur the honestlyboundaries between the floors and kind of give, because this is the first building asi said, kind of give a look that applies technology advancement, things like that, what bdd isabout. we use the 3d sun panel breakers, they help reduce the heat gain. that is the mockupof the panel. this is basically 12 foot this is 375 centimeters. this is some experimentationwith the density of the opening. that is the lighting design rendering thatwe're applying on the facade. so we're working with a lighting firm out of atlanta, georgia,called black buddy design. they did a really

good job. that is a view of the south towerand the north, with the church in between. so as we were working on the north tower,they thought, okay, you know, we want to develop the lot to the south of the church. so wekind of wanted the both buildings speak the same language. and this design, it is havingthose less static, more moving, so they can communicate between each other, overlook thebig piazza here and communicate with the church, being like kind of stuck in between.this is what the building will look like with the series of stacking of the volumes andonce we were in the middle of that project, the church came to us and was like, you knowwhat, since you are doing the whole project, why don't you renovate the church for us.it was like all right.

so that was it was interesting because thischurch was there for like long time ago and it had witnessed like the war years and obviously,it was, you know, pretty destroyed with no roof. but really, visiting the church andlooking at this image in particular, this was really the inspiration and being there,looking at, you know, you can see the sky and everything is like, wow, that is coolto have this abundant light coming from above. so this is the location of the church. andin between the building and in regard to the whole master plan.this is the other item that was inspiring. this is the warmth where the light that entersyou. we took this idea and we kind of developed it in a way that to create this spiritualspace made out of this abundance of light.

and conceptually, it is quite straightforward.this is how the church looked like right now. we will just strip off all the new plasterlayer added in the 50s or 40s or something like that, with a glass roof and this structure,and those element we're calling the truncated pyramids. the truncated pyramids really symbolizeall of the bombs that were exploding and throwing all the shrapnel as if they were frozen intime. instead, they were just showering the space with light rather than the destruction.that is a ceiling diagram showing the different component of the ceiling. that's how the effectwould look like from the inside. one aspect of this project was that becausethe civil war was basically sectarian. the issue of religion is a taboo in lebanon. sowith the community of bdd almost like in the

60% younger than 35 years old, most of thosepeople were born after the war. so we were addressing the postwar generation when itcomes to the design. we wanted to create a space that is attractive for younger generation,so they can maybe be interested in at least visiting or looking at what a church or thereligion do for them. rather than just run away because of what they heard from parentsor read through the history books. that was one important aspect to have this church accessibleto the younger postwar generation. the other thing, they really look like the ornamentfound in old eastern specifically eastern church found in that region. but they arejust interpreted in a contemporary way. and at the same time, they act as acoustical elementfor the high ceiling space. i think 14, 15

years. from the outside, the glass roof whenit slip at night with the shiny effect, it kind of gives the echoes it echoes the risingor the coming back or something like that. when it comes to the construction of the project,it gets a bit tricky. although the church had accepted to dismantle the building pieceby piece, put it on the side, excavate the whole side, put it back again, the departmentof culture that is in charge of heritage and everything. they did not approve such a step.it had to remain as is. what we had to do was having a basement from this building separatingfrom this one would lose efficiency when it comes to parking spaces. beirut is super dense,the street grid are very narrow. traffic is horrible. so parking is extremely important.that is why we have six floors in the project.

so we had to come up with a system to holdthe church in place. we had these beams supporting this structure holding the walls because theycould collapse at any time. and doing the excavation of six basement underneath okayso this is as if you are inside the church, looking down. this is the north tower or thenorth building. and like hanging the church up and aiding this continuity in the basementfor an efficient parking system for the project. the third project we're working on in bddis the t3 tower. this is like the most strategic location. this is the signature building theywanted for the project. if it also it takes the individuals behind the master plan, theopenness and just deploy it in a vertical way on the building.so the building looks quite transparent, kind

of blurring that division between east andwest because this is where it is located. one advantage of low rise development, youknow, being close to common areas, access to green spaces. in our case we had no choicebut to go with this low rise. with stacking and getting the benefit of being in the proximityof the common areas by inserting them vertically in the building and at the same time, gainviews, create all the different type of apartments that we want and even bringing that greenspace all the way up and giving them not just as public but also as private green spaceis becoming, like [indiscernible] when you want to get your apartment, you have the optionto choose if you want a green or pool or just a landscape area. so that is just a generalsection on the building. that is how problematically

it is. it has a lot of variety of residentialunits and they are all based on the community that will live in bdd.we looked at richard, florida, and the theory of the creative class on this work. this isreally what this community is about. these have completely different needs than the conventionalor older families like our parents or things like that. so the open space is extremelyimportant. the communication with the outside. the size that has dropped typically apartmentsin that regions go really large. so it is no longer the case with these guys. this isone of the split apartment. and how the green areas, they start to be deployed verticallyon the building. even the horizontal convention of the slab that we are trying to rethinkit by creating one of the split level. this

is a project we got an award from the aiaon last year. and the design category. moving a bit south, we practice also in thegulf, mainly or mostly in saudi arabia. and looking specifically in jeddah. looking atjeddah as the culture, it is very conservative. privacy is something of extreme importance.these are buildings from the old town of jeddah. and all the facades are just, you know, cladby boxes, wooden boxes with tiny holes. so they make sure they will not be seen, butthey can see outside. so this is how, you know, obsessive the privacy and conservativismis over there. the first project that i'm going to show you there, it is for the jeddaheconomic company, which is responsible for developing the tallest tower, the collectionof a tower in dubai.

this is the vision they have. they call itphase one. this is the red sea right now. and our lot is here. this whole area, theycall it the financial district. we have a city block to develop as office building.what they're trying to do here is change the image of conservatism and issue with privacyby flexing and showing they can build tall and build cities like their neighbors in thegulf. so this is more like a statement of intent that these guys are trying to do. thisis a recent aerial that shows the tower is under construction with the infrastructurework underway. this is basically where the site is located.we're inspired by the desert as a geometric form. they don't want to dig for basementfor parking, because the water table is really

shallow. they came up with a podium type ofzoning to house all the parking garages with public spaces on top and the building sittingon the podium. so we really wanted to look at this typology and see if we can innovateor try to make something a bit more interesting than what they had put in their master plan.at the same time, they are a city that is promoting itself to being pedestrian friendly,encouraging a lot of pedestrian walkways, wide sidewalks. despite the harsh weatherthat they have over there. so we started connecting those different levels for pedestrian, usingsome ramps. and we even shape the tower like opening up this way to emphasize on the spacethere. and showing where those public areas are in relation to that podium. that is howthis the amassing study of the building. the

result is a podium that is sloping and takingpeople around, climbing up and down, to reach that main public area. and this is the maincorner overlooking the tower. this is the main entrance. we used the podium to createthis access. and where it intersect with the horizontal floor, we have cafes and publicareas that has the project. that is the middle area with the topography of the podium climbingup to reach the central area. even the skin, so to make the whole thinglook kind of homogenous or uniform, we use extruded kind of an extruded molding to actas breaker, sun breakers, and they shift down and even cover the podium itself to make this whole look quite uniform. another approach of the public spaces in thatcountry is the project we're doing in dammam.

dammam is a city on the eastern side of thecountry toward the gulf. basically it is the client wanted to have an office park. withthe floor plate size. with the ring road and major highway close to one of the biggestmalls or maybe one of the malls, the few malls that they have. so this is where the siteis. they have different organization and plan and we were inspired by the idea of the oasisand how we could create some organization with different and unique views for each buildingand creating the access for the vehicular drop off and pedestrian access and lookingat how we can drop the public space a little bit to have this affect that you are containedin some kind of valley like the oasis. and because the program called for the groundfloor of these, so to encourage area to be

more pedestrian friendly, we worked on thegeometry of the building by increasing the roof or making the roof bigger than the groundfloor, we will just decrease the area of where the sun rays can go down and then the resultis a more shaded area in the middle. adding to that some water features at theentrances where they can cool the air where they go down. so this is like the stamps ofhow you can shape those buildings and create those that is how it looks and plans witha lot of green spaces and alley for the pedestrian with all of the water feature. and with thesection. this is the old it is a facade building that re align on the street.this is another theme that we've been working on andthis is again, this obsession with privacy,

slash, luxury and when you combine both, youcan have something extremely exotic. this is a project for one of the king's son.during the summer, the king leave the capital riyadh and they go to stay in jeddah, whichis kind of the beach city. not that they go to the beach, but basically, a lot of thepeople travel with the king, be it assistant, ministers, princes. all of these guys. they'rea lot of people. so they needed a place to stay during their travel that is completelyprivate, completely secluded, where they can see no one and no one can see them. this isreally an obsession. so we looked at bilad and how to create the villas with maximumprivacy and open spaces. the circulation is limited to the ends where we could maximizethe space in between taking a typical box

of what a villa could be. it was creatingthe spaces in between. this is the diagram of the private service garage, the accesspoint, the building blocks above, wrapped around, you know, with some kind of surface.and introducing landscape with the water feature, like in waterfalls, things like that. andin plan, it looks like very fragmented pavilions with, you know, the bedrooms and office spaceor when the assistant of that vip person comes in to sign some documents, they are limitedto a small access, the service comes from downstairs, serve the dining and space andthey can just leave. so it is all about that is being felt around.this is what we saw for like the vip it is for theroyal family.

it is the same thing, i remember when we weregiven the brief, the most luxurious place to stay. and they want to pay, i don't knowhow much per square meter to build that project, but they want something completely different.and then, you know, you start putting the effort on things that may seem superficial,but they just respond to a certain culture. and basically, this is the same story withdifferent arrangement. they have two master bedrooms, one is here, one is here. they areconnected with the bridge. the pool is elevated way glass railing thatdoes some kind of waterfall going down. the living room down there was some glass blocks,you know, that you can see the pool from below. things like that, that they just translatewhat the culture needs or what the culture

is looking for. another similar project interms of theme is the blue house. but this is privately owned and it is for a familyof prominent businessman in the city. in the city, this is about extreme privacy. thisguy has five daughters. even there is a bigger layer of privacy because, you know, they inthe saudi country, you separate until like very recently, they separate women from men.and having five daughters it is like a challenge. so basically, this is a lot that is in thecity. it is almost 11,000 square meeting. 110,000 square foot. and it is just for onefamily. the built up area is the 40,000 square foot. the way the house is split, basically,it has many entrances, service, secondary entrance, main entrance this way. a seriesof courtyards. these courtyards are service

courtyards. the client wanted to hide anyservice. they have eight bedrooms for drivers under here with main kitchen, cooks, securityand guards. so they all share courtyard. when you enter all you see is greenery, they takenatural light from the side. this is the service courtyard overlooking down to the domestichelpers' bedroom. that is four or six, so when you enter, this is how they are hiddenunderneath. there is an obsession, again, of being out of vision.there is the men's villa, or the [arabic] which is the men's reception area. there isthe reception guest for the guests. and then there is the kids' wing. so basically, ithas a library, gym, a guest bedroom and like [indiscernible]. it is fine if you see throughhere, because you won't see anything. all

you see is some green. so they're not worriedabout that transparency. upstairs, that is basically the kids, thefour daughters, the fifth one is married. that is the guest room. so she comes withher family, stays downstairs. that is the family living. that is the master bedroom.master bedroom is 180 square meter. so basically, the importance of privacy has led to seriesof courtyards where the house was developed all around and it is amazing how much youcan do to secure this privacy. so all the building facades were related to the issueof privacy. so we developed a contemporary screen that echoed the old screens we haveseen in the previous picture of the city. they called [arabic]made of stainless steel tubes attached to

stand stones that was imported from spain.jeddah is very humid, so sandstone is really good for the humidity.this is one of courtyards with the small openings that give on to the main plaza outside. thisis another courtyard that gives to the living room. that is for the family living. so allof these series of courtyards to lighten up the space and to make sure they are not goingto be seen from the outside. this is the you know, this section is developed, this is aservice courtyard, family courtyard, the office sits right there. that is how the buildinglooks like, you know, you are working with the mass and you try to punch it where youreally need to. that is the office overlooking the house.and for me, this picture is interesting because

this office looks like it is even protectingthat house or those daughters that they have. and the pictures were taken using my phone,because we're not allowed in the house once it was completed. it was like you can't goin. we live there. you know, you have to respect our privacy, plus we don't want you to copythe design. i think they don't know we have the drawings.so going back to the village of faraya, it is the it is like an hour, hour and a halfdrive. this is a summer house for the family of four. they live there in the summer, winter,christmas vacation, midyear break to go skiing. the area the site is right behind those trees,right there. so the area is for all these rocky formations. there is this natural bridge,actually something interesting to see. and

this is something we were inspired by. whenthey took over the house. it is a 650 square foot lot. we took the building envelope. westarted slicing it. i call it shaped by the views. it is a public garden to be developedright next door. and we have open views this way, open views towards the mountain rightthere. with, you know, we put a skylight. as if those angles, they came and sliced thebuilding. basically in terms of programming, just a couple of things, for the kids, thebridge that acts like a sitting area, in the main bedroom. and the living space that isopen on both on both sides. so during the summer, this is being oriented north. whenyou open this side and the other, you have a really like naturally ventilated or cooledarea. but that is the section over the deck

and the main space. now, the client is obsessedwith hunting. they go into south africa. they have a lot of trophies collections. so itwas one of the requirements of the interior to have those in there. the section in anold view. you have the snow season. even the texture of the building, we wanted to havethis rough and the monolithic look or form. it is inspired by that natural bridge andthe formation that is on site. going back to jeddah, this is a project we'recurrently working on, but you know, i thought it is interesting. it also relate to the publicspace. i wanted to share it with you guys. there is a lack of public space in saudi arabia.right now, they developed the waterfront into a park. it is a big thing for the city andthe citizen. it is the only way out for a

breather.the client, through the renovation of the waterfront, the city has identified spotsfor small little structures that will be f and b or shops. it is the site we were given.it is called c9. it is dedicated for commercial use. it is like a thousand square meter. probablythe biggest among the whole series of sites. it is opening this way to the sea. this wayto the coastal road. one thing to make sure, we didn't want the building to interrupt thepark. we wanted to try as much as possible to have it kind of integrated with the park.and with the 5 meter maximum height allowed right there. what we tried to do was pushthe side to the sea by creating some kind of a low point here, and pull the point onthis side up where we could get the maximum

exposure for the shops, you know, for thehigh traffic road on the coast. and where we could engage the public, so the publicis very important because they are not used to public spaces. so this is the first part.it is extremely important for us to take this into consideration as we design. and the buildinglooks like it completes whatever landscape design they had there.in section, it has this kind of access point with the shops oriented this way to the road.it starts to act as an amphitheater where people can go climb up, you know, wander around,have a look at enjoy the sunset view. this is like, you know, a plus five meter, thehighest point in the park. it could be pleasant just to sit there and hang out. with the newlaw of allowing for movie theaters, we thought

why don't we just put an outdoor movie theater.and we presented this to the city. and we were actually surprised, they liked the idea.so now they're going to provide because this is outside of the property, they're goingto provide what we need in terms of, you know, poles, stretch fabric, things like that, thatyou can dismantle when you are not using and have an outdoor screening as long as the clientdoesn't charge for it. that was the requirement. so this is ongoing.and going back to beirut, this is the for project for us as a project. the first projectfor us as a project. this is on the southeastern side of the city, which is a hill. it overlooksthe mountains on that side. this is also close to a lot of important infrastructure elementsbeing like a big hospital, museum, university.

this is what you see from beirut. all themountains that go down, they just touch the sea.we wanted to kind of celebrate the site. we took the silhouette of the mountains and weprojected them on the building and tried to create or animate a few of the facade by linkingit in maybe an emotional way. so you know, we started to framing the views, but thisframe is not really an orthogonal frame. this is like, all the mountains that are surroundingit. and this is basically the city limit is right there. and the hill starts and theybuilt up into the mountains. these act as at the same time as an extension to the livingspace, balconies and terraces are very appreciated in lebanon because of the nice weather, asi mentioned earlier. at the same time, they

act as sun breakers for these or protectionfrom the sun and these balconies. and it was a very interesting process how to build this,like we had series of 3d models going to 2d, i think they used the manufacturer diffusion,laser cutting over steel to create the framework. it was an interesting process to go through.that is another view from the south. and some of the detail of the tension point, whichis also interesting how the topography starts moving a lot and then when reaches the corner,they are more subtle. this is the lobby entrance. although this is our first project, it hasjust been completed, actually. it is, you know, probably needs a couple more weeks.but tenants started to move in. that is the lobby of the building. it is like the mainarea, we wanted the white to continue inside.

this is the opening through the hallway ofthe building right behind, which is dedicated for offices. and it act as a screen for theresidential building. that's the size of it, on the ground floor. what is interesting isto see this building along with the cityscape, so, you know, this is one of the view thisis another. beirut is a very chaotic built environment. it is it was built through layers.the layers of the war, the chaos after the war, so you see a lot of really old degradatedbuildings with new ones that are very commercial and it was interesting to see how this wouldlook like, you know, in the city. these are the new neighbors in the neighborhood, sothose tenants that have just moved in. so yeah, i mean, it is evident that how youwork is, you know, has a lot of interest in

the built environment and how these differentissues, be it political, social, i don't know, environmental, all of these, how they canshape the architectural and the city. so thank you, and thank you so much.[applause] i'm happy to take questions, and i'm happyto take followers. we need fan base in syracuse. >> question: [no microphone]and relative to client, desire, relationship, processes.>> yeah, well, what is very important in that part of the world, they started really buildingwhen the crisis hit here. we're talking about 2009 2006, 2007, 2008, where this wave ofconstruction has been going on. there is an obvious lack of education when it comes tothe built environment. so things related to

environmental friendly don't exist. thingsrelated to sign, the aesthetics. basically, it is copying the arches and those ornamentsor wooden boxes we have seen and putting them on a glass building. there are atrocitiesaround the city and it is kind of scary. so going there to practice, when i first wentthere, actually, i was a straight laid jeddah. there was a culture shock. so trying to explainthe importance of design and how design can add value to a real estate investment, noteven talking about architecture, it is quite a hassle. but i think they're learning. thanksto dubai. because saudi looks up to dubai. anything happens there, they just kind ofcopy it and bring it to saudi. a good example is the new jeddah tower. the jec. if you lookat downtown dubai master plan. it is a copy

paste. the tower, lagoon, biggest [mall|maul],which i forgot to mention, excuse me. all of these are really a copy. and they werepasted in there. so it is they are changing now, but, you can just count, though, thepeople you can really work with and have an exchange of dialogue. it is quite interesting,yeah. it is a journey, yeah. [chuckling]. >> thank you. so interesting places i havenever been before. more interesting in the context and size of the project and all thisidea of extreme privacy. so how to deal with context is the question, one, is like i wouldsay the private villa for the prince. it is out of context. the $5 and the huge area aroundthem. [indiscernible] in the huge urban development, which means one voice in large size. whatis the context. i think the last project that

you have shown, the one building and you haveseen the history of the context of all the top down, you know, building around that,that is the most influencing, how to relate to it. i think to me, it is a topic that ihave seen your work and interesting to hear your point of view on that.>> yeah, the issue of context, especially in a place like saudi is very, very interestingand it is very spread out on all levels because context can mean culture. if you drive throughjeddah, it looks like four to five city walls and everything happens behind. whatever happensbehind is whatever happens in any normal country, but it has to be screened off and walled off.so really, the context become more how the people live, how they want you or expect youto respect that.

we try in all of the work to align with this,but at the same time, see like kind of glimpses of what to bring to the table. this is challenging.we had to get out of a lot of projects because simply the dialogue was not going well. likewe're speaking, you know, completely different language. it is a bit different when it comesto lab lebanon. it has layers of history, contemporary history you can work on. workingon that is a different mind set, if you will. you kind of change hats as you step on theplane. you know, you travel around the areas. >> i think one of the first conversationsyou talked about signature and how it is the social divide in between women and men insaudi arabia. i look at the buildings you build and there is not one symmetry line inthe project. i think it is a huge success.

and how does what does it mean in kind ofthe social hierarchy? >> i think the relationship between the twoif you don't have understanding between you and your client, i don't think the projectcan lead anywhere. luckily, the project we're working on and especially the ones that ishowed you are people that although they want to respect their culture or at least showto the others that they are respecting the culture, because they're not really mainstreamabout opening up yet, is something very crucial for the work. because you can't have a certainphilosophy in life and then you contradict yourself when you apply it in practice. andthe same for the client. so this is why we were lucky to have those clients because theyare able to understand what design is and

what design can bring to the table. and thatis why we tried to blur this line or this symmetry line as much as possible. i mean,you could see it maybe in that blue house project with the big massive house. but still,it is, you know, once you go inside, it is a completely different life.so i think the main thing is having a client that really understand what you are talkingabout. >> two questions. one is the last projectyou showed is the first that you did, but is only now being built. so one question ishow many of the projects are under construction or will be built, that is one. and the otherquestion is, how do you get projects done? are they competitions? are they straight commissions?>> well, yeah.

>> you have i am guessing that the answerto the first question is they're all going to be built. is that true?>> yeah, i mean, all the practicals in bdd, the t3 tower, the ones under construction.>> you showed maybe 10 things tonight. how many of the 10 will be built.>> well, the fragmented villas is on hold because that is the son of the ex king.>> okay. >> so ... i think you have got the answer.the office park is under construction. the blue house is built. the c9 will be built.that little landscape project in the landscape. the jec is the strategy is that they willpresent and look for investors. all of the lots on the jec master plan, it is to investor buy the property. they buy the property

with the design and they just connect thatclient with the architect to develop the project. >> so you showed 10 projects>> maybe two or three that they are not. they are not going to be built.>> so what blows my mind about that is typically when architects show their work, they show50 projects and maybe one is built. and they you very casually just spun through them allas if to say i designed these, they're all going to be built, whatever.>> i should have shown the others. >> i mean, it is just so how do you get theseprojects? because culture here is more straight commission. europe there is more competitions.asia more competitions. how do you? >> there is a lot of competitions, specificallyin lebanon, i think we were lucky to get the

bdd project. we first got to work on a competitionof one of the projects and then we work on a competition for the tower we like. and thenthey stop doing competition and gave us the church and master plan. the master plan isongoing. not necessarily we will do the architecture of all the buildings, but we're finalizingthe master plan. when it comes to saudi arabia, this is the reason why we're able to keepour office small. we're five people, including myself. so is that we have a local officelike a kind of a partnership in saudi. and they are super active. and we're working togetherfor quite some time. the fact that we share resources had a lot of benefit on our sidesto stay small. and the fact that this country was really booming in terms of real estatedevelopment. you get access to a lot of opportunities

that are going on. and thanks to them at thesame time, they are true partners in that saying.>> a lot of those are straight commissions? >> yes, yes. in saudi, i think they are allstraight commissions, yeah, yeah, yeah. >> other questions? okay. thank you, karim.>> thank you, too. [applause] [end of presentation]

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