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28 March 2024

Dewan has designs on growing Iraq market

Dewan's design for a school project. (SUPPLIED)

Published
By Sona Nambiar

Dewan Architects, a regional architectural and engineering design firm with offices in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Qatar, and the Philippines, said the workload has more than doubled in the past three months and the regional market is picking up with the Iraq market offering huge potential.

The firm is also awaiting approvals for a project in Dubai from Meraas, the developer. "We are awaiting approvals from Meraas to go ahead with the project. We have done the master-planning for their project in Dubai and expect to hear from them soon since it is a housing project for the rental market and hence is low risk," Ammar Al Assam, Executive Director at Dewan Architects & Engineers told Emirates Business.

"From March to May this year, our revenue has gone up by 57 per cent and we expect double-digit growth for the coming year," he said.

 

The market seems more favourable in 2010 according to the industry. What is the current situation for architectural firms in the UAE?

We are all fighting for the same job but it is a fair fight. The good companies continue to stay on and the market has come back to 2006 and 2007 levels. Clients are getting picky and companies have to be cost-effective. We will never see some receivables again since clients have left the country. We are sitting and negotiating with the rest. Most want to pay but cannot and so are looking at alternatives.

You seem to have suddenly started to focus on the education sector. Any reasons?

The Abu Dhabi Government is spending more on the education sector and wants to build 100 schools in the next few years. Of the 18 on the priority list, we have won the award to design six schools in Al Ain and Abu Dhabi. They are at the tendering stage as is Aldar's Al Bateen School. Our scope is to develop the architectural and engineering design for the latter (Bateen) – the concept of which was designed by a Singapore firm – and provide on-site post contract supervision services. Since then, we have been bidding for more school projects.

Any joint ventures with other firms? What is your project portfolio for this year?

Architecture companies need to be more diversified in terms of geography and other skills. We are also involved in infrastructure and design and have tied up with Coba, a Portuguese firm. We are doing projects with them in the UAE, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. We are bidding for projects in Abu Dhabi and those of Dubai Electricity and Water Authority. We are also looking at Oman and Libya, where we have a representative office and are close to securing work in housing. Most jobs are going to be design-built projects or in the hospitality sector.

Is work picking up in Riyadh since you ventured into that market?

We began operations in Riyadh in February 2009. The office was set up in December. In the summer of 2009, we won a job to design a big masterplan in the Dir'aiyah area in North Riyadh. It is a residential project of about 5,000 to 6,000 housing units on half-a-million square feet of land. We are in the process of getting approval from the authorities. The project value could come to an approximate SR3 billion (Dh2.9bn) to SR4bn. The project will be completed in phases and construction will start by next year. The other project is a 30-storey commercial tower on the Dammam-Al Khobar road where we are finishing the design. Construction will start in the last quarter of 2010.

What about Iraq's potential? Your firm seems to have increased its activities in Iraq.

We had an office there in 2003. But after three years of good work, things became very violent and we disbanded the physical office. We reopened in 2008 and since then it has been one of our greatest markets. We are doing the Rotana Hotel and the Rydges Hotel in Karbala, owned by developers from the region. This is in the early design stages.

We also submitted the winning design for the contest organised by Baghdad Municipality to develop the area surrounding the holy shrines in Al Kadhimiya, Baghdad, the Iraqi capital. It is a religious and high profile city, which also generates billions of dollars in revenue from religious tourism for the government. We hope to start design details soon. The designing process will take about five years and construction will be spread over 10 to 20 years. The government has the budget for this multi-billion dollar project. The scope of work will include buildings, restoration of historic buildings, sewerage systems and so on (see box). We won this project beating seven to eight international and regional firms. We are continuously bidding for work in Iraq.

All provinces have their own budgets and there is good potential in Basra, Najaf and Sadr City. We are working on the masterplan in Najaf and have won the Najaf Governor's Council Building and Bab Al Muraq hotel and mall complex projects in Baghdad.

SPOTLIGHT ON AL KADHIMIYA

The project is centred around the historical area – an integral part of which are the holy shrines. It is also surrounded by a historical market and traditional houses that showcase some cultural and religious activities. The main objective of the project is to enhance the position of Al Kadhimiya as a very special district of Greater Baghdad, distinguished by the character of its historic streets and houses, and its flourishing commercial areas, said Dewan Architects.

"The final design we submitted envisions the shrine as the innermost 'kernel' of the city, enveloped and protected by different urban layers that mediate between the interior and the exterior world and together form a coherent whole.

The inner urban layer includes important elements of the historic urban fabric which will be upgraded, renovated and substituted on a plot-by-plot basis according to information to be collected in the future, with the aim of retaining the scale and the main characteristics of historic Baghdad.

Other, more peripheral layers introduce contemporary residential structures that cater for modern needs of vehicular accessibility, public facilities and commercial functions.