Girls Sanctuary 3rd Prize Winner - Tamayouz Award 2021

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A GIRLS SANCTUARY - Mada'n, Iraq

Third Prize Winning Project for Dewan Award in the Tamayouz International Award 2021 Competition.

This year, the award’s theme was the design of a sanctuary for homeless underage girls, as well as older female teens (4-18 yrs old), seeking proposals that were mindful of the existing urban fabric, as well as providing a safe and comfortable space for the girls that support their health, educational and psychosocial needs and helps them to achieve their potential.

Location: Al-Mada'in, On the Tigris River, Iraq.

Plot size: 15,000 m2
Project By: Ayman M Ismail & Aya Mostafa

Aerial view - Along the Tigirs river

In this project, the design addressed all the emotional and physical objectives through three key architectural concepts: containment, heritage and nature.

Competition Poster Panel

Containment is reflected in the physical proximity clustering and
enclosed sub terrainian earth architectural design

“A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.”

Main Axis to Grand Plaza

“Nature mends broken hearts, cluttered minds, and troubled souls.”

Nature and sustainability in re-engineered wind catchers for energy generation, natural ventilation and light wells. A wide walkway along the tigirs river with several activities for a connection with nature

Educational Zone - School

The judging panel comment:

“A very competent design. Low scale clusters of courtyard housing, public buildings in the centre are a little larger and well defined. Introverted spaces but also the nice treatment of riverside with a wide walkway – although it does not take full advantage of the local conditions and a little too much of ‘public architecture’ feel for traumatised girls.

The 45o shift of the grid creates interesting spaces which are organized successfully to reflect the hierarchy of uses from the small scale residential to the communal.

The project responds to the requirements and uses a clever typological pattern for housing and a small courtyard for different units and plenty of open space, despite low-rise preference.

The master plan provides a fair distribution of functions and access.

While it is commendable to consider passive cooling elements in architecture, the wind towers that are typical to the Gulf States functions with multi-directional winds not the predominantly northwestern winds in Iraq. The concept of earth-sheltered architecture is appropriate to the context but has to consider the rising water table in the spring.”