UN-Habitat Housing

Winning competition entry for new 5000 person settlements in Iraq

2011

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Winning entry for an international architecture competition by the United Nations for new 5000 person settlements in Iraq. The competition aimed to radically raise the quality of new housing districts for Iraq’s relatively young and growing population.

This project is related to other projects in Iraq such as Kadhimiya, as well as comparative studies with proposals by others and their progress in Qatar.

This scheme inverts the standard “estate” layout, keeping vehicles to the perimeter and provides a generous pedestrian landscaped spine connecting all sub-districts and social infrastructure such as schools, souq, administration, playing fields and mosque. Dwellings are typically apartments with generous plans and ceiling heights in three and four storey buildings with dark cool lightwells and shaded external spaces. Cost of construction was kept low by using limited plan types (which we designed) and rotating and combining these to create a great variety of narrow lanes, streets, and common courtyards. We experimented with ICF construction and proposed a system of producing wall forms in situ, greatly reducing cost.

Further to the UN’s aims, the scheme aims for a balance between being particular yet also general to enable significant adaptation to service other sites in central and southern Iraq.