E311 Entertainment Interchange

Name(s): Gbadebo Giwa and Sherine Khafagy

Instagram: @sherinekhafagy @gggarchitecture

Professor/instructor : Jason Carlow

Semester: Spring 2020

American university of Sharjah

This Project was listed as one of top ten in the Radical Design Competition by Arcdeck

On the longest highway in UAE: E311, this project attempts to create a Bilbao effect in Ajman by creating an Entertainment City Megastructure that interrogates the synthesis of every leisure activity with residential programs. It utilizes the major component that Ajman lacks to boost it’s own economy and to create a unique competitive identity which would align it with more developed emirates. This proposal provides an incentive for Ajman residents to not only stay in Ajman but serves as an attraction for residents of other emirates and tourists worldwide.

This project has sought to provide new visions for urban-scale development by interrogating architectural typology in this region of the world and beyond whilst trying to uncover and better understand the social, economic and political forces that shape the architecture and the built environment of the rapidly growing cities of the UAE and the Gulf region. Looking at examples of architecture across time and around the world for strategies that might yield a more vibrant, dynamic and equitable city in Ajman and the Gulf Region, the project does not focus on the design of a single high-rise tower, but on the design of a tower type; specifically a type of building that “when multiplied can create a city that is more than the sum of its parts”. The projects operate at the scale of the building and the scale of the city simultaneously to test how we as architects can impact the territory beyond our designated building plot.