Qatar Courthouse, Office Building Development, Qatari Architecture Images

Qatar Courthouse Building Design

Qatari Office Building Competition Entry design by AGi architects

22 Jun 2015

Qatar Courthouse Building

Design: AGi architects

Location: Qatar

Healthcare and governmental projects by AGi architects, shortlisted for WAF Awards 2015

Qatar Courthouse Competition Entry

Order is one of the core principles in which the AGi architects’ proposal for this institutional building, Qatar Courthouse, is based. Order as synonymous with structure, law and justice.

The building is designed on two basic grids that are site driven, one linking it to its immediate context and the second to the larger context of Doha. These grids create stunning structural and spatial possibilities that make the building stand out visually so that people can see their ideals reflected in built form -structure, order, transparency, ambition- all of which are the ideals of Qatar’s growing society.

The project brief contained a dense program that would occupy only 40% of the site, which would yield a type of vertical structure. This verticality however in the context of modern day Doha does not read as institutional. We sought to expand the ground plane across the entirety of the site, creating a public plaza and in doing so altering the proportion of the building.

Floating above the plaza is the main structure carrying the central courtrooms, signifying that the law is above everyone. These subtle gestures ensure that the plaza act as a threshold between society at large and the justice system, making the Qatar Courthouse an open and welcoming building, rather than an ominous, insular one.