Charlotte Skene Catling has been invited, in collaboration with four other young practices, to take part in producing a concept and masterplan for a sustainable community on a site north of Doha. This will be a self-contained extension to the city and will form an intellectual exchange for an international creative community and local Qataris.

The site conditions are among the harshest in the world. There are extremely high temperatures, high humidity, high wind velocities, sandstorms and a lack of fresh water. These ‘disadvantages’ were treated as positive design criteria, and the scheme emerges as a natural expression of the underpinning sustainable principles. The architectural rationale and the environmental logic merge to form an interdependent whole. An underground heat-exchange phase labyrinth forms the basis for a passive cooling system. This is embedded in the foundation of the scheme for maximum thermal mass.