The In-between
Tamara Husam Rasoul
The introduction of cooling systems within the city of Dubai has led to an upgrade of lifestyle through the ability of the a/c to provide comfort through taming the arid desert environment. Today a space within Dubai cannot be built without the implementation of a cooling system. Transforming the air conditioner from a machine controlling the climate into a tool of urban development.
This well tempered artificial environment has led to the loss of transitional spaces and the multilayered relationship between the urban interior and exterior. Through the implementation of air-conditioning the productive life of the city currently lives within this air-conditioned buffer zone which has privatized, encapsulated and disconnected the way in which people move, live and work. As a result the air-conditioner has not only created a thermal disconnection between the inhabitants and the Emirati ecosystem, but through the enclosure of rooms and spaces has lead to a social disconnection between the city’s population.
Thus, the project is a proposal for a new system of occupation in which the social and thermal layers of the city could be diffused through extending the domestic space of hospitality within the typology of the villa known as the Majlis. Learning from historic and contemporary nomadic forms of living; the bedouin tent, the design focusses on the permanence and materiality of the wall relative to both privacy and hospitality. Where the wall becomes an infrastructure of hospitality and a definer of privacy. As a result the design creates an inclusive space constantly changing, opening and closing at various degrees suggesting a new system of occupation that preserves, cultivates and shares the existing culture.