Mariam Alzaabi // portfolio
architecture+ planning + urban design
DISTRICT 2020// EXPO DUBAI - LEGACY District 2020 - Expo Dubai Legacy Oversee the legacy transition post Expo 2020 event, coordinate the design of allocated projects, plan and engage with consultants to manage transition from Expo 2020 to it’s legacy District 2020 post event.
Phase 1E – Aug 23 → Jul 24
(6 Months)
District 2020 - Phasing Plans & Road Access Strategy Co-ordinating infrastructure planning of the transition masterplan with Parsons as the lead infrastructure planning consultants, phasing the transition of the masterplan through the next 5 years forward post Expo 2020.
Plot sheets + Pavilion Transition Working on masterplan plot sheets on AutoCad to readjust the Expo Masterplan to District 2020 Legacy, with the readjustment of some roads, infrastructure, as well as considering pavilion redesign and alignment comes into consideration during the transition phase of the project. Some pavilions are fully retained, expanded, or mminimized in space in their legacy phase of the project and have to undergo plot planning adjustments in order to align with the new phasing and strategy of the District 2020 Masterplan.
The transition of the main core thematic district to a multi-use commercial and residential plots is essential to the transition of the masterplan. Therefore studying the repurposing of 80% of the buildings and assets post-expo to align our core requirements and vision to create a blueprint for a human centric, smart and sustainable city.
Drafting sales marketing sheets and plot sheets for future tenants to lease out different spaces within District 2020, subdividing areas, ensuring plot restrictions and access points align with the tenant design guidelines, as well as ensuring unit and utility information aligns with the transition masterplan and caters to the future tenants of these repurposed buildings throughout the the main cores of District 2020.
EASTERN LINK// ULI Hines Competition Finalist Fall 2018 This competition was in collaboration with students from across different backrgounds to submit proposals for a new development in East of Toronto.
Eastern Link, is Toronto’s newest cultural connection. It’s a neighbourhood fueled by Toronto’s economic engines of downtown and East Harbour. This location makes Easterna Link uniquely positioned to become a cultural centre and a local-serving mixed-use development.
Eastern Link maximizes major opportunities for coming together, such as including adaptive reuse linking the past and future. Existing buildings transform into cultural institutions that anchor the neighbourhood’s east-west axis and its visual identity. With its emphasis on both culture and daily life, Eastern Link is a neighbourhood that is iconic but also intimate with a variety of building typologies that are accessible in each phase. To stitch these neighbourhoods together and take advantage of the real estate value unlocked by the relocated transit station.
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Existing buildings transform into cultural institutions that anchor the neighbourhood’s east-west axis and its visual identity. At the east end, two heritage buildings become an arts elementary school and an east Toronto campus for The Power Plant, a community arts organization. On the west, a former a former BMW showroom is reimagined as studio and gallery space for artists adjacent to a new MOCCA East.
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The vision for Eastern Link is rooted in extensive community participation and input. Phase I includes the opening of an on-site Community Hub to host meetings, charrettes, and other outreach throughout the entire development process. Eastern Link leads with design, but it is grounded in strong market fundamentals. Eastern Link’s project area extends beyond the original riverfront site to follow the seam between East Harbour and Riverside, creating a true corridor development.
CASEY CANAL PARK Academic Project Spring 2018 This project deal with issues of Sea Level Rise in Savannah alongside the issues that arise from traffic, new developments and zoning issues.
The aim of this studio project is to be able to construct proposals dealing with climate change (sea level rise and displacement), stormwater management and green infrastructure, re-purposing infrastructure, and retrofitting automobile dominated landscapes. The initial challenge was Victory Square, a strip-mall, big-box, commercial strip development surrounding the intersection of the Calhoun Parkway and Victory Drive. Once we understood Victory Square and the local situation, we expanded the site area to include, the drainage basins, Skidaway Road ridgeline, and Casey Canal and Truman Parkway. The diagrams below highlight the major issues of sea level rise, the 100 year floodplain and traffic issues.
The Casey Canal was relocated and channelized – partly concrete, partly soil – when the Truman Parkway was built. Prior to channelization, there would have been no canal, only a system of wetlands with water draining slowly through multiple natural waterways. The 100 year flood includes most of Victory Square, parts of Truman Parkway and existing housing, some of which is relatively recent. Some buildings are certified for flood insurance, like Home Depot, but that required large areas and volumes of fill within the floodplain. With filling that has occurred, flood plain volume is a real concern. Measures to increase the volume of the floodplain are critical for future development. Our proposal is to remove Truman parkway anda bring back the park that was intended to be built in 1930s in order to allow adaptability in terms of flooding and to create solutions to decrease traffic issues along Victory Drive and Truman Parkway intersection. This would encourage people to interact with the park in a way that they haven’t before.
Savannah’s sea level rise considerations must also include spring tides, the highest tide in the lunar cycle. In Savannah, these each four feet above and below mean high tide (MHW). Our project aims to embrace the water flow and allow spaces to be created that are more pedestrian friendly and engaging in terms of the solutions we offer within our park.
CASCADE // RE+ASSEMBLED Academic Project Fall 2017 This project is formally an excercise in platting, looking at different criteria in building typologies in suburban site in Atlanta.
This project is based in the extents of central Atlanta, across the highway into a suburban area on the outskirts of the city. The surrounding context shows a residential neighbourhood primarily filled with large single family residential suburban houses that are set deep into the lots with a huge area of frontyards and backyards. The context shows lack of choice in building and lot types. The neighborhood limits the kind of households it can attract and retain to only those that can afford and desire to maintain a large lot single family house. If it offered more diverse options at a range of price points the neighborhood could retain more of its aging population as well as welcome investment from the next generation.
Cascade Re+assembled is a way of rethinking single family homes but with more communal amenity spaces. The surrounding neighborhood prioritizes private backyards and front yards over public spaces, while this project values the existence of a range of shared courtyards, publicaly accessible woodlands, and a small commercial building. These bind the surrounding homes and creates public front yards that houses look onto. The intention was to create a new way of organizing single family homes - to densify and to share amenities. The densifying and repacking of single family homes create different levels of privacy and affordability that enable the creation of an inclusive environment for demographics that range from young couples to retired senior citizens. Importance was given to preserve trees according to the ordinance.
Abu Dhabi Urban Professional WorkPlanning Council 2014-2017
2013-2016 Masterplansdesigns and designs contributed to and on Masteerplans contributed to and worked XPSLFE PO XIJMF JO UIF mFME PG BSDIJUFDUVSF BOE while in the field of urban design and planning, focusurban planning. ing on project reviews, consultant co-ordination, policy application and masterplan approvals
Al Raha Beach [Masterplan]
The development of the Al Raha Beach East promenade is part of the Al Raha Beach Master Plan, seen as one of the biggest projects that the Urban Planning Council where I worked on reviewing and approving the project for Aldar Properties. Al Raha Beach is a mixed-use development consisting of reclaimed land along the coast with a series of canals and islands interlinked by boulevards and promenades to form a unique waterfront community, stretching over 10 kilometres. The development is a hugely important public feature that will contribute towards promoting a healthy, active lifestyle for the estimated 60,000 residents.
Saadiyat Island [Masterplan + Cultural District]
Masdar City [Masterplan]
This 27 square kilometre island was planned and created around an environmentally-sensitive philosophy and low-density master plan. As a result, Saadiyat’s developments have been built around natural beauty, cultural experiences, architectural splendours and business potential. Among the island’s crowning elements is its Cultural District, whose on-going construction progress is being monitored eagerly by art MPWFST FWFSZXIFSF 'FBUVSJOH EFTJHOT CZ mWF 1SJU[LFS 1SJ[F XJOOFST UIJT EJTUSJDU T DVMUVSBM JDPOT JODMVEJOH -PVWSF "CV %IBCJ ;BZFE /BUJPOBM Museum and Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, will make the island a leading destination for the arts in all its forms.
One of the world’s most sustainable urban developments, Masdar City in Abu Dhabi is enabling innovation in sustainability and clean technologies by integrating education, research & development, investment and business opportunity. It is an innovation ecosystem: a thriving community, a business and investment free zone, and a hub for knowledge creation. The highly collaborative approach of Masdar’s Master Planning and Design Team and the Urban Planning Council has delivered an optimized urban framework focused on sustainability and innovation.
Distribution [warehouse] Academic Project Spring 2012 A warehouse for water and plant palettes and alongside an interpretive center in Mulaiha, Shajrah, United Arab Emirates.
A similar language was then the main key factor of Distribution. As it is a warehouse, a simple open plan was the approach to this project, as it also provides an interpretive center. The main idea of the structure of this warehouse is to create a series of of units that attach together with a series of different metal connections, structures and alternating in size, shape and scale. The shape and proportions of each structural member relied on the design of the different triangulated structural elements that changed from the outer structure that reformed to create the roof structure. Using this strategy allowed for a clear limitation of form, and created a functional response to the program. The overall structure itself scales down within a proportional hierarchal system.
Archi[zoom] // internal fabrication Academic Project Fall 2013 This project developed as a hybrid machine that performs as a tool that imitates its surroundings.
Materials such as plastic, plaster, cloth and concrete were used to document, analyze and experiment how the forces applied aid in creating spacial cavities with their unique, distinctive atmosphere. Using casting techniques and formworks, both digitally and physically to generate experimental undulating landscapes
The project proposes a series of tunnel-like voids and passages to inhibit dangerous remote and underground terrains. The spaces are fluid, dynamic, highly flexible and floats within the cavities of grotto-like mountains where its held. Inspired by the fascinating process of reformation according to the landscapes in nature, which challenges the standardized differentiation between material, structure and performance. This leads to multiple approaches towards the idea of enclosure and exposure.
Digital scripting and material interaction is used to generate a free-form that can be manipulated to create adaptive surfaces to wrap the body and manipulate the fabric-like elements to follow the form of the surrounding landscapes which generates an environment specific element.
The cave-like void is formed through the application of forces, interactions and deformation to create shell-like structures, that replicate and adapt to the surrounding mountain formations. Connecting bridges were formed as both structural elements that allow access to the spaces, both visually and physically.
Casestudies + Experiments Academic Work 2011-2014
CORE // PLUS PLUS Academic Project
This project is a speculative urban design proposal for a Manhattan block adjacent to Hudson Yards on the West Side. Based in both extensive and intensive programmatic research, the project proposes recon guring the tower and plinth typology to better leverage the sharing of both physical infrastructures (structure, circulation) and what we describe as “programmatic infrastructures,” the public spatial networks that are critical to the social efficiency of high-density urban living.
Both types of infrastructure are relevant to the project at both the scale of the city and that of the individual building, and already enable the audacious architectural recon guration taking place at Hudson Yards. By exploring ways in which physical and programmatic infrastructures can produce new social adjacencies, mediate between public and private space, and streamline production, the project explores potential opportunities for the future evolution of large-scale, high-density development.
Prosthetic Formations
Digital Naturalism
Digital modeling and rendering of conceptual prosthetic formations based on the human body. My concept was revolving around a basis of a functional armor that acts as a living organism that grows bo- tanic elements within the pods of the armor. The basis of the idea was about a science fictional character that functions with the addition of this armor.
This digital rendering is of an experiment with lines and the exploration of a variety of thicknesses to create a structural module and through repetition of the singluar module to create a full form. The light lines at the base hold the full structure.
Software Used: zBrush, AutoDesk Maya, Rhinoceros GeoMagic
Software Used: AutoDesk Maya Rhinoceros GeoMagic Magics