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Synergistic: The Interaction Between the Past and Future.

Year: 2021

Category: Industrial & Infrastructure

Skills: Grasshopper, Rhino, SketchUp, Photoshop, Enscape, Twinmotion

- If you lived in 1999 in Abu Dhabi you would have seen those buildings everywhere until you see those new modern glass high-rise buildings and towers start taking into shaping the city view. You can see how those modernist buildings represent the history of Abu Dhabi, what functions they serve and why should we preserve them. They connect to the historical aspect of the city design in Abu Dhabi and the preservation of architecture, heritage, and culture of the country and land itself. - The main function of the Central Bus Station is transporting workers and visitors using buses from Abu Dhabi to the rest of the emirates. Should we preserve the function of transportation? How about if this building is preserved for the next 10 years, you can't turn a blind eye to the future and economical aspect of Abu Dhabi with the advanced technology that will take over soon. The 2030 Abu Dhabi masterplan that included metro lines, was all located on certain points focusing on infrastructure, which will require a station for each node or point. - The metro station will encourage public use, infrastructure plays a role in its placement, economy boost, safety risk management induced, the increase of public buildings, but mainly to reduce traffic and carbon emission from vehicles. Buses are on four wheels and they hover in the street which creates more traffic than we can imagine. I believe in the future the buses will be less used and the metros will be heavily used. The bus stops will stay but not as much as the UAE is trying to invest in metros and railways as a serpent line as entity to the transportation smart plan framework. - When we come back to the original point, if the building have certain daily users or elements, the architecture will be replaced at one point. When it's going to be replaced it is going to be removed as an entity but still serves under the same condition, under one notion, one idea, a transportation hub. The function is the same, and even more advanced than the previous building, therefore the purpose of the old building is never replaced, just a more parametric facilitated building. - Synergistic is a multi-modal transportation hub that merges a metro station, bus station, and taxi stop coming together for the 2030 future of Abu Dhabi and connecting the busy urban context of Al Wahda Area of past Central Bus Station. The metro station epitomizes a pedestrian-friendly station and aims to preserve the old central bus station. The project proposal includes having a metro station as a transportation hub in the middle of downtown Abu Dhabi as a challenging context. The focus is redefining the relationship between preserving the past and history of the UAE with the future vision that we want to capture for a better forthcoming with the 2030 Abu Dhabi Master Plan. For the full project please check https://www.behance.net/gallery/132899445/Architecture-Graduation-Project-Synergistic

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MAIN PROJECT PERSPECTIVE

The perspective shows the main roads passing by the site with the main functions of the transportation hub that includes: Taxi Stop, Metro Station, and The old Alwahda central bus station.

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POSTER ONE

The first poster illustrates concept derivation, coding iterations, site activity nodes along with a perspective showing Taxi area zone of the transportation hub.

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POSTER TWO

The second poster showcases three perspectives of the projects: the building colorful led roof from the hotel view, the tunnel for the passengers and vehicles, and last one showing the structure overlapping the old central bus station. Next is the main plans of the project that includes: ‘Ground Floor’, ‘Underground 1’, ‘Underground 2’, and ‘First Floor Plan’. And lastly the main cross section along with detailed sections showing each zones levels and functions.

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POSTER THREE

The third poster starts with two main interior perspectives; one shows the metro tunnel, and the other shows the arrival passenger building. Then we move to the structural layers diagram and detailed cross-section of the building material and layers. Then it ends with the main elevations showing the fluid parametric curves of the project across the city skyline.

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Duaa AlRifai