Doha Passenger Port Terminal

Client: Qatar’s Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy

Place: Doha, Qatar
Restricted Competition: 2018

Type: Transport

Area: 22,600m2

Budget: QAR 200 million

AZPML

Alejandro Zaera-Polo, Maider Llaguno-Munitxa, Ivaylo Nachev, Carlos Orihuela, Victoria Recio Dura, Evgenia Krassakopoulou

Doha in Arabic means “Great Tree.” Our proposal is to turn the new ferry terminal into a garden with trees. Palm trees, Carob Trees, Olive trees, Sweet Gum trees, Jacarandas, Myrtles, Baobabs and other local species will cover a raised, shaded garden from which well-wishers and hosts will welcome or bid farewell to the passengers. The future Doha Passenger Port Terminal will become also an enclave where residents of the city will enjoy watching the sunset or going for a walk, accessing the garden through two monumental helical ramps at the entrance to the building.

The roof park is designed as a negative form of the vaulted structure of the terminal, moulded by the structural domes to form a dunar landscape which will introduce multiple opportunities for a theatrical public space. The vegetation of this dunar landscape will be a crucial mechanism in the environmental ecology of the building, shading the roof for outdoor comfort, but also collecting rainwater to maintain the garden while contributing to cool the terminal through adiabatic evaporation and thermal mass.

The Terminal design is based on an Iwan, a repetitive vaulted structure, like an old market or a mosque, where public assemblies, commerce and other functions will take place when the Terminal is not busy in the low season. The cavernous structure will be made in reinforced concrete, using inflatable domes as a lost scaffolding.

A bus dock with 85 slots has been located on the East side of the building to facilitate the speedy disembarking of passengers in the peak time. The taxi drop-off and pick up bays sit at the North of the building with a taxi pool of 140 taxis to supply the terminal in the peak times. A parking for private vehicles has been located at the entrance to the pier, covered with a large solar canopy which will be used to meet energy demands of the terminal and to power a seawater desalination plant to feed the roof garden.