The Contemporary Savoir Faire of Lines and Forms
By: Ar. Maria A
Photography by: Ar. Fawad Abbasi
Project Covered Swimming Pool and Fitness Facility
Building for Islamabad Club
Client Islamabad Club
Sponsor H.H. Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed
President of UAE and Ruler of Abu Dhabi
Architects Suhail & Fawad Architects
Project Team Ar. Suhail A. Abbasi, Ar. Fawad Suhail Abbasi,Ar. Ali Zahid, Ar. Maryam Iftikhar, Ar. Amna Naveed
Structural Consultants: SMK Associates, Karachi
Electrical Consultants: Bizlink, Islamabad
HVAC, Plumbing & Pool Consultants: Fahim Nanji & Desouza (FND), Karachi
General Consultants: PEPAC and Associates
Construction Managers: Design, Engineering and Management Consultants (DEMC)
Builders: Technical Associates
Location: Islamabad Club, Islamabad
Areas:
Basement: 9979 Sft.
Ground: 15250 Sft.
Total Built Area: 25229 Sft.
Commission January 2006
Construction: April 2006
Occupancy: November 2007
Growth has been a mantra in Islamabad since the last decade. More people, more sprawl, more buildings, more housing schemes and the list goes on and on. With an ever increasing population, and with politics as its hub, hotels, clubs, recreational spaces and boutique hotels are hot potentials for the ever visiting dignitaries from the globe. Islamabad has become a centre of attraction for a number of investors from both local and international markets and with this comes entertainment and recreational facilities that every city needs to provide to its citizens. One such place that has catered to the growing population and the old residents of the city in the last thirty years is Islamabad Club.
Suhail and Fawad Abbasi the father and son teamed up to approach both their recent project and the earlier one as steps in a process of organic growth and ways of advancing Islamabad cultural infrastructure to catch up with the rapid growth of the city. The Covered swimming pool and fitness facility building is part of the three projects that have been commissioned to the duo Suhail and Fawad architects. The complex comprises of a Covered Swimming Pool and Fitness Facility building which has been built. It is placed in the centre of the three buildings with the under-construction 50m open pool and Service building on one side while the under construction Covered Badminton hall & Basketball building will stand on the other side. The three buildings will complete the complex as part of the larger master plan.
The Islamabad club has been asking for renovation for some years now and this contemporary addition will definitely overpower the existing structure. This building in particular shows their design evolution with the forty years experience of the father and the modern contemporary ideas of the son. The entire team that worked on it needs to be praised for making a landmark project with clean simple lines and intimately scaled spaces and a play of volumes.
The scenic surroundings of nature which is an added bonus to the city of Islamabad is a definite advantage to any project in the city. This up and coming building with its other counterparts to the entire of the master plan is loosely clustered around a path and placed strategically with the pedestrian and ever increasing vehicular zone. The latest building of fitness center adjacent to the pool is contemporary modern architecture as opposed to the existing seventies structure which currently houses the facilities of Islamabad Club. Both are not in cognizance with each other, the clean crisp, grid like mass broken with the staircase rotunda is alien to its surroundings but with the other facilities coming up will surely blend. It is a refreshing play of lines, masses juxtaposed to a rotunda surrounded with the freewill of nature. The organic versus the grid and plutonic form definitely evokes of Gehry’s inspiration and a successful one at that.
The louvered metal structure is a pragmatic and aesthetic addition to the elevation. It clearly shades the vast expanse of glass from direct sun, at the same time adding another dimension to the wall feature. The plutonic geometrical forms are repeated in key elements such as the main entry boxed entrance clad in granite and the recurring oval shape which crops up in door details, floor patterns and reflected ceilings.
The covered pool building offers its members a 25 meter covered (centrally heated and air-conditioned) competition pool with a spectators seating for about two hundred and seventy five people, separate changing rooms, showers and restrooms for ladies and gents, two separate entrances one for the pool and the other for the two level gymnasium.
With its dark brown wooden floor and yellow feature walls, the gymnasium opens out to views of the green golf course. It offers state of the art machines for its daily users, aerobics area, a lounge, steam room, sauna and Jacuzzi facilities. This building has been designed keeping in mind its traffic flow which is in hundreds everyday.
As you arrive you are led from the parking area towards the façade carrying glass and metal louvers as a curtain wall while becoming a defensive screen by positioning itself into the mainframe of the building. This side will look onto the new 50m pool once it is completed. One enters into a well lit oval skylight foyer with a large reception desk and lockers behind it. The color scheme is beige with maroon granite and porcelain tiles to match the overall feel of the spaces. The attached corridors carry centrally positioned circular skylights and demarcate the divisions of various rooms. The highest block which is the roof of the pool becomes a blue translucent shield where light from the sides reflects the blue in the pool thus changing the interior within while the orange color of the spectator seats and dark blue of the air-conditioning ducts and sky blue feature walls in the toddlers pool area act in contrast to it.
The circular pattern of the flooring has been repeated through out the building from its doors to the ceiling pattern. Large scale glazing both in the interior and exterior help in breaking the monotony and improve the relationship of various spaces. The building has powder coated metal trellises as a major design element and has been repeated on both the curved and linear forms. Interior details incorporate interesting and colorful wall textures that highlight its usage and the furniture blends well with the color scheme as a minimalist approach has been the focus of the architects. It also highlights the importance of having the interior designed by the same team so that a cohesive look is achieved in both the inside and outside and also since they look at the project in totality and work around the client’s limitations while making sure that the exterior façade relates perfectly with the interior details.
Like the city around it the club continues its rapid growth. With the new addition to the club of Islamabad the design team wanted to be referential but not imitative, for inspirations the architects looked at the simple form of geometry. The result is a steel framed pavilion with granite walls that sits below a grid placed structure submerged to the ground. The other structures are following; the challenge is to unite the pieces with the whole. The complex a stones throw away from the Islamabad Serena stands in supremacy to its tangentially apposing concept heralding post modernism in the region.
Photography by: Ar. Fawad Abbasi
Project Covered Swimming Pool and Fitness Facility
Building for Islamabad Club
Client Islamabad Club
Sponsor H.H. Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed
President of UAE and Ruler of Abu Dhabi
Architects Suhail & Fawad Architects
Project Team Ar. Suhail A. Abbasi, Ar. Fawad Suhail Abbasi,Ar. Ali Zahid, Ar. Maryam Iftikhar, Ar. Amna Naveed
Structural Consultants: SMK Associates, Karachi
Electrical Consultants: Bizlink, Islamabad
HVAC, Plumbing & Pool Consultants: Fahim Nanji & Desouza (FND), Karachi
General Consultants: PEPAC and Associates
Construction Managers: Design, Engineering and Management Consultants (DEMC)
Builders: Technical Associates
Location: Islamabad Club, Islamabad
Areas:
Basement: 9979 Sft.
Ground: 15250 Sft.
Total Built Area: 25229 Sft.
Commission January 2006
Construction: April 2006
Occupancy: November 2007
Growth has been a mantra in Islamabad since the last decade. More people, more sprawl, more buildings, more housing schemes and the list goes on and on. With an ever increasing population, and with politics as its hub, hotels, clubs, recreational spaces and boutique hotels are hot potentials for the ever visiting dignitaries from the globe. Islamabad has become a centre of attraction for a number of investors from both local and international markets and with this comes entertainment and recreational facilities that every city needs to provide to its citizens. One such place that has catered to the growing population and the old residents of the city in the last thirty years is Islamabad Club.
Suhail and Fawad Abbasi the father and son teamed up to approach both their recent project and the earlier one as steps in a process of organic growth and ways of advancing Islamabad cultural infrastructure to catch up with the rapid growth of the city. The Covered swimming pool and fitness facility building is part of the three projects that have been commissioned to the duo Suhail and Fawad architects. The complex comprises of a Covered Swimming Pool and Fitness Facility building which has been built. It is placed in the centre of the three buildings with the under-construction 50m open pool and Service building on one side while the under construction Covered Badminton hall & Basketball building will stand on the other side. The three buildings will complete the complex as part of the larger master plan.
The Islamabad club has been asking for renovation for some years now and this contemporary addition will definitely overpower the existing structure. This building in particular shows their design evolution with the forty years experience of the father and the modern contemporary ideas of the son. The entire team that worked on it needs to be praised for making a landmark project with clean simple lines and intimately scaled spaces and a play of volumes.
The scenic surroundings of nature which is an added bonus to the city of Islamabad is a definite advantage to any project in the city. This up and coming building with its other counterparts to the entire of the master plan is loosely clustered around a path and placed strategically with the pedestrian and ever increasing vehicular zone. The latest building of fitness center adjacent to the pool is contemporary modern architecture as opposed to the existing seventies structure which currently houses the facilities of Islamabad Club. Both are not in cognizance with each other, the clean crisp, grid like mass broken with the staircase rotunda is alien to its surroundings but with the other facilities coming up will surely blend. It is a refreshing play of lines, masses juxtaposed to a rotunda surrounded with the freewill of nature. The organic versus the grid and plutonic form definitely evokes of Gehry’s inspiration and a successful one at that.
The louvered metal structure is a pragmatic and aesthetic addition to the elevation. It clearly shades the vast expanse of glass from direct sun, at the same time adding another dimension to the wall feature. The plutonic geometrical forms are repeated in key elements such as the main entry boxed entrance clad in granite and the recurring oval shape which crops up in door details, floor patterns and reflected ceilings.
The covered pool building offers its members a 25 meter covered (centrally heated and air-conditioned) competition pool with a spectators seating for about two hundred and seventy five people, separate changing rooms, showers and restrooms for ladies and gents, two separate entrances one for the pool and the other for the two level gymnasium.
With its dark brown wooden floor and yellow feature walls, the gymnasium opens out to views of the green golf course. It offers state of the art machines for its daily users, aerobics area, a lounge, steam room, sauna and Jacuzzi facilities. This building has been designed keeping in mind its traffic flow which is in hundreds everyday.
As you arrive you are led from the parking area towards the façade carrying glass and metal louvers as a curtain wall while becoming a defensive screen by positioning itself into the mainframe of the building. This side will look onto the new 50m pool once it is completed. One enters into a well lit oval skylight foyer with a large reception desk and lockers behind it. The color scheme is beige with maroon granite and porcelain tiles to match the overall feel of the spaces. The attached corridors carry centrally positioned circular skylights and demarcate the divisions of various rooms. The highest block which is the roof of the pool becomes a blue translucent shield where light from the sides reflects the blue in the pool thus changing the interior within while the orange color of the spectator seats and dark blue of the air-conditioning ducts and sky blue feature walls in the toddlers pool area act in contrast to it.
The circular pattern of the flooring has been repeated through out the building from its doors to the ceiling pattern. Large scale glazing both in the interior and exterior help in breaking the monotony and improve the relationship of various spaces. The building has powder coated metal trellises as a major design element and has been repeated on both the curved and linear forms. Interior details incorporate interesting and colorful wall textures that highlight its usage and the furniture blends well with the color scheme as a minimalist approach has been the focus of the architects. It also highlights the importance of having the interior designed by the same team so that a cohesive look is achieved in both the inside and outside and also since they look at the project in totality and work around the client’s limitations while making sure that the exterior façade relates perfectly with the interior details.
Like the city around it the club continues its rapid growth. With the new addition to the club of Islamabad the design team wanted to be referential but not imitative, for inspirations the architects looked at the simple form of geometry. The result is a steel framed pavilion with granite walls that sits below a grid placed structure submerged to the ground. The other structures are following; the challenge is to unite the pieces with the whole. The complex a stones throw away from the Islamabad Serena stands in supremacy to its tangentially apposing concept heralding post modernism in the region.
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