Green Lung in Desert

Green Lung in Desert
Project Details

Client: Qatar Foundation, Education City

AECOM Design Director: Erik Behrens (Architecture Design Lead), Mark Blackwell, James Haig Streeter (Landscape Design Lead), Warren Osborne, Kevin Underwood

AECOM Team: Philip Dugdale, Alfredo Galindo, Eric Hallquist, Shafee Jones-Wilson, Wing Lai, James Manuel, John Neilson, Jonathon Reeves, Adam Rothwell, Jason Shinoda, Stephen Suen, Jack Wu

Engineering: AECOM, Arup

Lighting: MBLD

Water Feature: Fountains Direct

Project Management: ASTAD

CM/CS: Parsons

Main Contractor: MAN Enterprise

Information Source: v2com

Photo credit: MAN, AECOM, Markus Elblaus

Green Lung in Desert

Oxygen Park is a man-made ‘green lung’ with a design inspired by nature. It is an antidote to the generic indoor gym environment and helps people to get back to nature, while fostering social engagement and promoting active healthy lifestyles.

Located in Education City, Doha, Qatar, the project by Qatar Foundation, AECOMO, is inspired by the wind eroded rocks and fluid land formations of the desert. The path and running tracks are embedded in the topography to create an exciting training ground with looping tracks, cooled tunnel segments, and steep hills.

Green Lung in Desert

Taking the elemental life-force of oxygen as its inspiration, Oxygen Park, is a unique public space designed for health and wellbeing in a desert environment. It has been created with the local community in mind, providing an open space in which to exercise, rest, and play. The night-time lighting scheme and refreshing water features provide an attractive setting for evening sports activities and individual work-outs during cooler hours of the day.

Green Lung in Desert

The Park features shaded running tracks, subterranean pitches for team sports, equestrian facilities, as well as more gentle recreation areas with a series of soundscape-filled, refreshing folly spheres. The ‘balloon lights’ floating above the subterranean grounds make the park visible from afar and add a touch of magic to the setting.