Project Report: Society Development Oasis of ‘sdgs Hub’

By this time I have read a lot about how multidisciplinary fields can contribute to sustainability. In this project, I’m trying to make Architecture come to sustain Bahrain and the world by creating a typology of a hub that will simulate actions towards the SDGs by direct impact. This impact will be facilitated through a combination of work spaces that allows the ministry of youth & sports to have the needed facilities to research and strategize the implementation of the SDGs and an integration of social spaces that allows visitors to be aware of the SDGs and contribute to them. The target audience is youth either engaged through being employed by the ministry or through a connection to a space that is populated by youth. Its aim is to have an inclusive youth that’s aware of the vision of 2030 and is able to contribute to it as there’s no such facility around the world and the aim is to put Bahrain as the leading country in the implementation of the SDGs. The typology will be adaptive reuse wherein the SDGs evolve in multiples of 15 years hence the space itself should be able to adapt to the futuristic needs of the society.

Institutional Private Space or Social Public Space

During my thought process to find out the main functions of the design I questioned myself on whether I should approach it as a social public space or a ministerial/institutional private space to result with a better contribution to the goals. I am certain that the spaces will evolve throughout time as we achieve goals other goals will emerge every couple of years. After having some conversations with my friends about how they would envision the project, a main realization was that they would only interact with the project if they would enjoy it and the number of future visits would depend on the level of enjoyment & the feasibility in terms of location & effort. If it were to be an institutional private space the functionality of the building will completely rely on the users and would only cause impact through governance & social projects with limited use of the public; if any social awareness campaigns or events were to be held. Functions of the space would be limited to office functionalities. In conclusion, I envision it to include both to ensure accessibility rather than having one part of the social system contribute we can widen the reach by having it inclusive.

If we would go back to the previous argument, the working hours of a public space would be from 3pm on wards on week days (evening) on the contrary an institutional private space would open its doors from 8am until the afternoon. The merge means I need to consider how it could be highly effective during the day and night.

Target Audience

The target audience in my project are youth considering their age from 17 to 30 years old as by that we are targeting the present youth who will be the future leaders and as generations grow the space evolves with them. According to the statistics of Bahrain’s population, the population of Bahrain by 2014/2015 consisted of 26% youth but if we include those of the younger age considering the difference between the time of the report and this preliminary research it would reach up to 47% hence making the target audience between 26% to 47% of Bahrain’s population, this consideration is the caliber to be catalyst of sustainability in Bahrain, now and the future.

Not the first of its kind

One of the main reasons I selected this project as it was a unique project that wasn’t present in the world but unfortunately that fact is history since the first SDG center has been inaugurated very recently in Bahrain in August 2018. The Ministry of Youth and Sports has restructured the Science Centre to be correspond with its basic objectives and encourage new generations to explore modern sciences and cutting edge technologies, including artificial technologies. The centre which covers 1000 square meters includes an environment-friendly three-storey building which was redesigned to serve the sustainable development goals. The facility has also been fitted with solar panels and power fans and insulated completely with polystyrene to conserve energy.

According to the visitors the center carried mostly science installations and SDGs awareness was merely the impact that it had due to the SDGs related spaces being limited with screens and pictures rather than driving direct impact, therefore the users of the space didn’t contribute to the SDGs during their visit, in contrast with the objective of my design project.