JADE

MID-RISE RESIDENTIAL, 2021

JADE
JADE

Jade is a mid-rise, multi-unit residential building in Salmiya, Kuwait. Uniquely clad in a facade of perforated metal and concrete, each residential unit looks into its own recessed balcony/courtyard, giving the building its distinctive look.

Year

2021

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The eleven-story building has twenty two-bedroom apartments spread over ten floors, a double basement parking and a rooftop social space with a 15m long pool. The building addresses several critical issues exacerbated by Kuwait’s returns-oriented ex-pat rental market while maintaining a clean and minimalist aesthetic.

The compact prismatic mass was punctuated in 3 dimensions by subtractive balconies envisioned as private green courtyards. Three distinct and optimized apartment modules rotate on the central core axis varying the location of the courtyard on the relevant floor, resulting in a variable facade and giving each apartment a unique orientation in the massing.

Each apartment is organized around this recessed courtyard facilitating cross ventilation and diffused natural lighting without being exposed to the extremes of the desert sun.

The building goes against the grain by encouraging tenants-interaction with social spaces incorporated in the ground + roof levels; furnished lobby spaces, accessible green spaces, kids play area, gym, and pool, etc.

The facade of the building is optimized so the harshest sun is blocked by the perforated facade while offering filtered views to the exterior.

The design explores a new typology by adapting and scaling up the traditional middle-eastern courtyard house concept with mashrabiyas (privacy screen) in a multi-level, multi-unit scenario without compromising on the vernacular's original qualities, combating extremes of weather typical in Kuwait.

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