A complex interactions between a system of highway earthworks and the adjacent water treatment outflow worked together to create the Al-Wathba oasis in the desert, which is now a treasured wetland. The concept of this visitor center proposal for the Al Wathba reserve in Abu Dhabi, was to elevate simple materials such as rammed earth and shotcrete shell construction, and to minimize material use of rarefied elements.

The project seeks to exalt the history, the culture, the artifice, and the serendipity of the surroundings, through blending traditions and technologies. The heavy elements shot through with airy juxtapositions of patterns and shadow, figure and ground, projection and engraving. Together they emulsify; and the ephemeral emerges as a man-made counterpart to the aeolian landscape. Reflections and mirages of the marsh-water blending in a in a loving embrace of this anthropogenic creation. The center emulates nature by the repetition and re-scaling of simple patterns and configurations, guided by the adjacent ecology, and a desire to connect the viewer to landscape. 

This project was completed in collaboration with the labor activist and hydrological-conflict scholar Z.M. Field. We collaborated to complete the program narrative, ecological research, including species and biome research, geological analysis, project surveying and the 2d pattern work. I performed the architectural design, solar analysis, land use analysis and rendering.