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The Holy City and its Discontents

Part 2 Project 2008
Deena Fakhro
 Architectural Association London | UK
Once a year, every year, the Muslim Holy City of Makkah is momentarily flooded to breaking point by a relentless three million pilgrim-surge: the Hajj. As the largest gathering of people in one place at one time on Earth, the obligatory pilgrimage demands unparalleled infrastructural miracles of the humble Holy City. In response, the project strategically proposes polynodal ‘gateway airports’ that disperse congestion multi-directionally within Makkah’s valleys. These gateway airports opportunistically combined with the mosque typology, form an Islamic University that is activated through a programmatic switch, integrating the redundant off-peak Hajj infrastructures and establishing new autonomous cities.


The brief for the year reconsiders the phenomena of the Aerotropolis - an observation that airports today have become cities in themselves. Responding to the infrastructural and logistical dilemma of the annual Hajj that plaques the holy city of Makkah, Deena’s intelligently poignant proposal opportunistically turns the redundant airport to an absorber of an off-peak public program. The airport thus is re-imagined as a series of dispersed hybridised airport and Islamic University. Punctuating the valleys surrounding Makkah, these airports as new cities resurrect the idea of the ancient city gates that pilgrims pass through on their journey to the Holy City.
Tutor(s)
Mr Sam Jacoby
Mr Chris Lee
2008
The Hajj Pilgrimage in the Holy City of Makkah: the world’s worst logistical nightmare. For 5 days, 3 million pilgrims squeeze in through the bottleneck of the distant airport.
The alternative: to disperse the airport and integrate it with Islamic Universities, enabling an opportunistic switch between airport and university function.
Airport as Islamic Walled City: Re-visiting the circular airport typology, a mosque-core and security buffer with programmatic pockets are inserted, accommodating an interiorised campus.
Celebrating the holy threshold, the autonomous airport nestles into Makkah’s valleys. The aerotropolis’ cancerous sprawl is eradicated and replaced by controlled growth.
Its offset core prescribes an axis towards the divine destination of Makkah and pilgrims spiral around it on arrival, anticipating their future journey. The ancient relationships of Gateway-to-City and Pilgrim-to-Pilgrimage are resurrected.
The unstoppable pilgrim waves of 9,000 passengers an hour are dispersed within a decentralised spiral circulation framework.
The linked open space courtyards of the upper ground level absorb the temporary airport use and are framed by the university buildings.
During its month-long airport mode, pilgrims move monodirectionally along linear open corridors through airport technicalities.
The Hajj pilgrims circulate around the mosque core to access ramps leading to their gates.
The central mosque acts as a visual landmark orienting and guiding the passenger flow.
With the switch from airport to campus, the circulation pattern changes from linear to meandering, activating the inner courtyards.
The mosque now becomes a programmatic magnet transforming the public ground and re-organising the use of the infrastructure.
The linear corridors and linked courtyards are all contained between the landside mosque and the growth-limiting airside apron.
Thus the airport type that has equally nourished and crippled the Holy City is re-imagined as an airport, a mosque, a city and a gateway.
As city-gateways they absorb growth and surges from the Holy City whilst maintaining its legibility and preserving its natural limits: reinforcing the very idea of its sacredness.
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