Labor City: The Qatari complex for 70,000 migrant workers opens

The Russian Times reports that a $825 million housing project to accommodate around 70,000 workers has opened just outside of Doha. The targeted tenants are the tens of thousands of construction workers who come to Qatar for projects such as those for the 2022 FIFA World Cup.

Labor City is 8.6 miles from Doha, covering an area of 0.4 square miles. The colossal project is just one of seven housing complexes built by the government for the country’s approximately 260,000 labor migrants.

Equipped with public telephones and WiFi centers, Labor City houses migrants from countries such as Nepal, India, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam. Entertainment centers include a 17,000-seat theater, four cinemas, a cricket field, and a market with 200 shops. Two mosques were also built in the development.

One of the hardest decisions multifamily developers and their design teams have to make is what mix of amenities they’re going to put into each project. A lot of squiggly factors go into that decision: the type of community, the geographic market, local recreation preferences, climate/weather conditions, physical parameters, and of course the budget. The permutations are mind-boggling.

A post-pandemic ‘new normal’ for apartments, Grimm + Parker, Building Design+Construction 2021 Exercise area

Multifamily Housing | Jun 30, 2021

A post-pandemic ‘new normal’ for apartment buildings

Grimm + Parker’s vision foresees buildings with rentable offices and refrigerated package storage.

Resiliency | Jun 24, 2021

Oceanographer John Englander talks resiliency and buildings [new on HorizonTV]

New on HorizonTV, oceanographer John Englander discusses his latest book, which warns that, regardless of resilience efforts, sea levels will rise by meters in the coming decades. Adaptation, he says, is the key to future building design and construction.