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The Dewan Award for Architecture 2022, announced by one of the Middle East's leading architectural firms, calls on young minds to stand up for Iraq's humanity. The award is one of the main prizes of the Tamayouz Excellence Award, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. The brief for the architecture competition was to design a Rehabilitation Centre for Terrorism Victims in Iraq, that would cater to their physiological needs. "A place where the victims could be healed not only physically but mentally too."
Out of 136 submissions from 34 countries, all the proposals were scrutinised in-depth by the jury. The winning project was able to respond well to the brief of the competition, sharing a proposal for a rehabilitation centre where victims could interact with nature, receive healing and reclaim their human rights. Dewan Architects announced Jawdat Khader and Rajab Elshahubi as winners of the competition in Muscat, Oman, in January. “It really feels amazing for us to win an international award like the Dewan Award for Architecture, It also gives us huge motivation to pursue more endeavours like this one,” said the winning team.
The foundation of the winning ‘War Crisis Rehabilitation Center’ is embedded in the vernacular architectural form and language of Iraq and is expressed in each element of the building. The architects worked upon an original approach—which responded spatially to the city and the urban context. The project draws inspiration from Mudhif Architecture, native to the swamps of southern Iraq, in which the structures—the Mudhifs—are made up of reeds and grass which are locally and reasonably available in the region, as well as providing good thermal and acoustic properties. The structure was “conceived as a healing and gathering place dedicated to the physical and spiritual treatment of war survivors through medical and natural therapy as nature relieves the mind as much as the body,” relay the architects.
The project’s site, located in Zayyounah, Baghdad, is divided into various functional spaces based on a hierarchy of privacy and the resources needed to revive the economic and social rights of the victim. In the first space, the victim gets diagnosed, goes through individual healing, and traverses these spaces, leading to group therapy sessions, and encouraging interactions among all the victims. Then comes the semi-private zone, where workshops and lectures are organised to increase victims' exposure to visitors so that they are able to share their recognitions and achievements, ending with public spaces that include a theatre, cafeteria, and memorial park for the visitors.
The project wisely utilises levels in architecture to complement the surrounding greenery and show the diversity of spaces. The roof of the building gradually rises from the level of the park, also acting as a promenade for pedestrians to stroll and interact with the natural environment and the context, adding to the social life of the building.
Even though, Jawdat Khader and Rajab Elshahubi were the winners, other honourable mentions included—AC Architecture Team from Cairo, Egypt; Graviton Studio from Istanbul, Turkey; JIWAR Architects from Alexandria, Egypt; Marsa from Cairo, Egypt, Rahwa from Cairo, Egypt; T+Y STUDIO from Guangzhou, China; TGH Architects from Cairo, Egypt. Each of the submitted entries positively addressed the needs of the victims of Iraq.
The Dewan Awards main aim was not only to trigger the young minds to get up and think about how to lessen the pain of their citizens but also to enlighten them on how architecture as an industry could stand for humanity and how architecture could make the world around us a better place. Mohammad Al Assam, the founder and chairman of Dewan, conveyed to all the architects the need to be bold and to think in the direction of the road that leads to solving the societal issues of the countries they are serving so that we, as humans, could stand as one.
Text by Pratishtha Vashishth
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