Page 19 - MODUS NEWS 04

The Associated Architects Partnership (AAP)
Capitalizing on multidisciplinary and multicultural research, design, and technical teams, AAP strives to evolve the possible interventions available within contemporary, territorial contexts. Based in Kuwait and Portugal, and operating in several other countries, the burgeoning practice brings together a manifold team to innovatively collaborate on multi-scalar programs and projects.
www.aapkw.com
Bin
nisF
Occupying a 5 000 square meter plot, this new building will provide the Bin Nisf Group Co. with a headquarters, consisting of the company’s main oices, large hardware and heavy equipment showrooms, and merchandise warehouses.
The site is located in the rapidly transforming industrial district of Shuwaikh, Kuwait, where commercial and administrative facilities are replacing many of the country’s earlier industrial complexes.
The design intent was to provide a facility tailored to it the company’s industrial and corporate administrative needs. The showroom component was to be developed into a multi-faceted retail facility that catered to a diverse customer base, ranging from individuals involved in smaller do-it-yourself projects who are mainly interested in the hardware store component of the facility, to technically advanced corporate clients needing advanced, heavy equipment and project solutions. Congruently, the facility provides the transformed headquarters of the Bin Nisf Group from where the company will be operating and managing all its other subsidiaries, sister companies, and industrial facilities.
with the intent of showcasing the company’s evolving brand values and line of products, and inherently being part of the new Shuwaikh redeveloping milieu, the architects proposed a facility that urbanistically and architecturally resides in correspondence and contrast to its adjacencies. The proposed building is placed on site with generous setbacks all around to provide diverse references of entries to the facility (i.e., separate entries to the diferent program components) and most importantly, to create an inviting environment for passersby to interact with the building that culminates under a large, shaded area that serves as the entrance to the main showroom, a point of rest, and an urban point of reference.
Coupled with the undulating administrative component on the irst loor
that shies away from the sidewalk, these strategic, urban moves ensure the “light-presence” of the building on the street in comparison to the multistory, newly constructed buildings in its peripheries while, at the same time, prominently deining an important corner of a main intersection in the area as all buildings aim to do.
Bin Nisf Group Co. Headquarters, Kuwait