National Museum of Qatar, Giftshop and Children’s Giftshop by Koichi Takada Architects

Australian architecture firm Koichi Takada Architects designed the interiors of two gift shops inside Jean Nouvel's National Museum of Qatar in Doha.

The shops complement the organic form of the museum building by Atelier Jean Nouvel, which was unveiled in March 2019. The client’s brief specified that the museum’s gift shops must express an innovative, emotional and culturally rich response to the National Museum of Qatar’s curatorial mission - ’Heritage meets Innovation’.

Koichi Takada, winner of international competition in 2012, draw inspiration from The Dahl Al Misfir (Cave of Light), located in the heart of Qatar, a beautiful underground sanctuary formed largely from fibrous gypsum crystals that give off a faint phosphorescent glow. Gypsum appear in formations of clusters, such as the famous ‘desert rose’, and can also crystallize in other forms of fluorescent and translucent shapes.

The designs by Koichi Takada Architects were revealed during the grand opening on March 28, 2019, which included its Museum shops featuring undulating wooden surfaces, using a 3D modelling software.

Takada further explained, “The architecture is a representation of the desert rose mineral formation; a connection to nature. Each interior space offers a fragment of the Qatari history that aims to enhance and fulfil both, a cultural and memorable experience for museum visitors.”

The 40,000 wooden pieces that were put together for the timber walls were individually encoded with a visual number and guideline, assembled by hand, piece by piece without visual fixings. Each piece was glued and fixed by small cleverly conceived brackets to a steel rib-like structure behind the cladding. These wooden pieces, CNC-cut in Italy, were assembled by hand in Doha, by Italian master carpenter Claudio Devoto and his team of artisans.

Project description by Koichi Takada

The Dahl Al Misfir (Cave of Light), located in the heart of Qatar, is a beautiful underground sanctuary formed largely from fibrous gypsum crystals that give off a faint, moon-like, phosphorescent glow. Gypsum can appear in formations of clusters, such as the famous ‘desert rose’, but can also crystallize in other forms of fluorescent and translucent shapes, interacting with light and transforming the space, evolving through the day.

The timber walls of the museum shops were inspired by Dahl Al Misfir. Its organic architecture echoes Koichi Takada’s vision of bringing nature back into architecture, establishing relationships that connect people and nature through design. Using a cutting-edge 3D modelling software, Koichi Takada Architects achieved a design of curves and surfaces that words fail to describe.

Imagine putting together the 40,000 wooden pieces of a three-dimensional puzzle? Each wooden piece, CNC-cut in Italy, is entirely unique so it could only fit with its exact complementary piece. They were assembled by hand in Doha by Italian master carpenter, Claudio Devoto and his team of artisans.

The intensity of the design and craftsmanship pays homage to Jean Nouvel’s desert rose inspired architecture and celebrates the natural Qatari heritage of the desert-scape.

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Sketchs. National Museum of Qatar, Giftshop and Children’s Giftshop by Koichi Takada Architects.

Ground floor plan. National Museum of Qatar, Giftshop and Children’s Giftshop by Koichi Takada Architects.

Sections. National Museum of Qatar, Giftshop and Children’s Giftshop by Koichi Takada Architects.

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More information

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Architects

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Koichi Takada Architects.

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Collaborators

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Lighting Fixtures.- ERCO and IBL Lighting.

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Client

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Qatar Museum Authority.

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Operator/End-User

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IN-Q Enterprises WLL (subsidiary of Qatar Museums).

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Contractor

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Main Contractor.- IMAR Trading & Contracting. Sub-Contractor(Joinery).- Devoto Design. Sub-Contractor (MEP).- Sogelec.

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Area

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Museum Gift Shop 174 sqm, Children’s Gift Shop 97 sqm.

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Dates

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Completed March 2019.

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Photography/Videography

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Tom Ferguson.

Koichi Takada Architects

Koichi Takada Architects is a Sydney-based boutique architecture firm, led by Koichi Takada. Founded in Sydney in 2008, Koichi Takada Architects is a young and innovative practice, which has already delivered a wide range of architectural and interiors projects within Australia and overseas, ranging from mixed-use to residential, retail, hospitality and cultural venues.

Koichi Takada is a Sydney-based architect who aims to ‘naturalise’ architecture in the urban environment and believes in greening our cities – an approach he pledged after living in cities of high urbanization: Tokyo, New York and London. Koichi graduated from the School of Architecture at City University of New York and Architectural Association, London. He studied his thesis under Alejandro Zaera-Polo, Farshid Moussavi and Rem Koolhaas.

Founded in 2008, Koichi Takada Architects celebrated its 10th anniversary last year. Through a series of award & competition winning designs, the growing practice is gaining an international reputation and is about to change the skylines of Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Jakarta, Tokyo, Los Angeles and Mexico City.

Recent projects include Infinity in Green Square, Sydney, a futuristic mixed use hotel and residential project, shapes like a giant loop, nicknamed The Doughnut; another is Arc in Sydney CBD, the a 22-storey building podium with a series of traditional layered brick masonry arches and public rooftop gardens in striking curved white rib cages. Next key projects are already on their ways in Brisbane and Tokyo; an audacious design of residential building with 118m waterfall is an attempt to cool down the sub-tropical Queensland’s environment. At the heart of Shibuya’s new “stream” district in Tokyo, timber-layered gallery and studio building is designed for a new home to an American IT company, due completion in April 2020.

Koichi Takada Architects has completed six interior spaces in the National Museum of Qatar,Doha. The museum was recently nominated as one of the worlds 100 greatest places of 2019 published by TIME Magazine.