KUWAIT CULTURAL CENTRE

Project Description

CREDITS:  Architects: SSH / Main Contractor: Al Hani

The massive Sheikh Jabar Al Ahmad Cultural Centre in Kuwait City is a dazzling collection of huge diamond-themed buildings with theatres, music centre, library, conference centres and performing arts facilities.

Providing a cooling entrance way to these stunning buildings is a series of Glulam cross-over arches; manufactured and delivered all the way from TimberLab’s plant in New Zealand. Working closely with the Architects, SSH in Kuwait and the main contractor Al Hani, TimberLab successfully presented a cost effective design solution using treated radiata pine from sustainable NZ plantations. A series of main arches reaching about 18m are intersected with secondary and tertiary members, forming a diamond pattern colonnade that runs for over 100 meters alongside the main function buildings. All members were pre-finished with compound plumb and bevel cuts in the factory and carefully assembled on site under supervision supplied by TimberLab. Stainless steel wires attached to the Glulam arches provide support to the shading plantings while visitors take shelter from the searing Kuwait heat.