Architect：Emre Arolat Architecture

Location：Ajman - United Arab Emirates; | ;View Map

Project Year：2018

Category：Mosques

Ajman is a small emirate on the north of Dubai and Sharjah and a member of United Arab Emirates. Nora Mosque and Community Center will be built by an important businessman in memory of his late mother who recently passed away. The project’s plot is on a central location of Ajman, -the Capitol City which holds the same name with the Emirate, with an area close to 10.000 m2 

Instead of competing with the heterogeneous building stock nearby or with the oppressive effect of the giant wall formed by the high rise residence blocks on its north, the complex was rather designed with an approach that prefers to create its own unique and alluring ambience, a composition of shell-like platforms shattered once deriving from the earth. This approach initiated a very strong and at the same time as much tensioned relationship to form between the building and its context. 

The main design aim of the Complex, which contains a mosque for 2500 people, several halls for various social and educational activities, accompanying recreational and service areas to serve such facilities and a semi closed car park area is determined as to form a significant public area of the city. An internal street was formed as the main access spine connecting the two roads on north-south direction of the project area which is surrounded by vehicular roads on all sides, which at the same time enables the prevailing wind from the same direction to infuse in the building. It was stipulated that this street, eliminating the effects of the burning sun while forming a cool canyon atmosphere, will present an opulent experience of space to the user with its dramatic and alternate perspectives while connecting the various functions contained within the building.

The mass composition transforms the shell-like platforms to walkable surfaces, by melting the conventional roles of the basic structural elements with one another, turning the walls to a roof, and the roofs into walkable surfaces. Raising slowly from Sheikh Rashid Bin Humeed Road on the north -which is one of the main arteries of the city, the sloped surface that is partially landscaped to provide shaded areas leads the user to the highest level of the building. The top level is planned as a kind of a meditation terrace with its sea view on the north.

EAA’s revolutionary approach on religious buildings has intially found shape in Sancaklar Mosque in Istanbul. It is anticipated that Nora Mosque and Community Center, in a completely different geography and context and this time in a larger scale will pass through the door unveiled by Sancaklar Mosque and take over the flag to carry further ahead.

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