Gulf Construction Online - Kuwaitis to build oil museum

Regional News

Kuwaitis to build oil museum

01 March 2009

UK-BASED architect Morgan Professional Services (MPS) has unveiled designs for a landmark oil and gas museum and exhibition centre set to be built in Kuwait City.

The Oil & Gas Display Centre and Exhibition Centre for the Kuwait Oil Company (KOC), will be built in Al Ahmadi, Kuwait. The 8,800-sq-m centre will be arranged over three floor levels with a viewing tower above.
The circular building is inspired both by the culture of the Middle East and the nature of oil itself. One of its most striking elements is an 11-m-high sandstone outer wall, a reference to the traditional city wall that once surrounded Kuwait City.
The inspiration behind the design concept is the ammonite fossil with its distinctive, spiral-form chambered shell. The ammonite is linked to the very origins of oil which is formed from the organic remains of marine organisms subjected to extremes of temperature and pressure over millions of years. The colours of the ammonite are echoed in the museum’s exterior and interior through the colour schemes chosen and the hard landscaping.
Nine interactive exhibition spaces form an integral part of the building and are housed in the building’s Centrum or central zone.
On entering the museum site, visitors will pass along a tree-lined walkway, featuring three different colours of granite paving with a black granite ‘oil line’ leading to the main entrance, under an expansive bronze finished canopy.
The museum will have ground- and first-floor areas set around the Centrum with a basement and a viewing tower, which rises to 16.8 m above ground level. The building will be made up of stone-clad concrete walls and slabs. Ground-bearing construction is used for the basement and ground floor with a central waffle slab forming the suspended ground floor over the basement. The first floor and terrace will be formed using a radial rib slab construction. The Centrum area, viewing tower and roof will be built using a steel-frame system supported on central columns with universal beams radiating out to create the main roof construction. Exposed tubular steel trusses support the main entrance canopy roof.
The central part of the building will be taken up in sandstone cladding up to the main bronze roof, while the viewing tower will have silver-coloured rainscreen cladding.