Business Bureau, Gulf Today

Sharjah Investment and Development Authority (Shurooq), credited with inspiring a sustainable movement in the architectural landscape of Sharjah, has announced the launch of Sharjah Designscape, a virtual architectural talks series that will discuss the current architecture landscape within Sharjah and explore the future outlook and transformation of this field in terms of ideas, concepts and designs, within the emirate and around the world.

These weekly webinars, to be held at 8pm every Thursday on Zoom, will run from June 25 to Aug.6, and will feature top international and UAE-based industry experts who will lead the discussions on the path ahead for architecture and design practices, and the challenges in planning and designing future cities.

This unique discussion series designed by Shurooq targets architects, designers, students, community planners, real estate developers and community members in the UAE and beyond, and seeks to encourage them to push the envelope in creating built spaces in which social and environmental responsibilities are seamlessly interwoven to benefit culturally diverse communities of people across age groups.

The discussion series begins this Thursday, June 25, with a session titled Sustainability in Architecture. Led by Dara Towhidi, Partner and Architect at Fosters & Partners; Nada Taryam, Director of Civil and Architecture Projects, Bee’ah; and Khawla Al Hashimi, Director of Projects, Shurooq, the interaction will examine the architect’s responsibility in social, environmental and regenerative sustainability.

On July 2, Shurooq will host Socially Inclusive Design that urges architects to consider the needs of all age groups, genders, races, and abilities, in everything from city-scale to product design.

The following Thursday, July 9, Marwan Bin Jassim Al Sarkal, Executive Chairman, Shurooq, along with other speakers will speak at the session titled The Future Trends in City Design that will address how cities should be designed for the future.

The Future of Educational Spaces, to be held on July 16, will explore how educational spaces are overstepping the physical to turn virtual; while on July 23, the session on Resilient Cities will look at how cities can morph and adapt to changes in environmental/social issues.

The frequently debated question in the architectural field, Can Traditional and  Modern Coexist?, will be the focus of discussions on July 30, while the concluding webinar on Aug.6, titled Light & Architecture will provide interesting perspectives on whether form should follow light or vice versa.

Announcing the launch of Sharjah Designscape, Khawla Al Hashimi, Director of Projects, Shurooq, said: “Through this architectural talk series, Shurooq seeks to expand both the professional’s and the civilian’s understanding of the environmental, social and aesthetic challenges of contemporary architectural practice, and how addressing these concerns are creating some of the most exciting areas for the built environment industry.”

She added: “In Sharjah, Shurooq has played an instrumental role in the emirate’s transformation through an urban planning strategy founded on an efficient social, cultural, economic and environmental framework. All existing and ongoing Shurooq developments also give due importance to principles of sustainability, infrastructure capacity, community planning, connectivity, quality of life, and the emirate’s evolving cultural identity, to create quality living environments that best support human development.”

Al Hashimi concluded: “Architecture has the power to change the way that we live - for the better.

This series of seven weekly webinars led by industry experts who are shaping the future of architecture in the region and globally, will therefore encourage those in the sector to ask the right questions to ensure that what is being built is innovative, inclusive energy-efficient and meaningful.”

The seven architectural talk series hosted by Shurooq are open to all interested participants, who can log on to any or all the webinars through Zoom by registering in the following link: https://bit.ly/sharjah-designscape.