Sleeping camel Hotel | Kenan Belal

Architectural vision:

The project’s architectural goal is to save this house in Al Bastakiya neighborhood and to give visitors a chance to experience traditional architecture. This kind of architecture and urban fabric of Al Bastakiya neighborhood work together as a body. For example, the coordination between the alleys and courtyards can keep the houses cool when the weather is hot. Another example is the wind tower as it catches the cool air to send it into the ground floor level. The main door of the house leads the guests through the narrow and tiny entrance to a wider open space called ‘courtyard’. This space frames a piece of the sky as a gift to emphasize what part of the sky we own in addition to the property of land that we are stepping on. This surrealist scene makes us feel that we are capable of reaching the sky during the day and the stars at night. The courtyard works like a well of cool air within midday. The adaptive reuse of this kind of house can save this historical place in addition to its neighborhood as it gives us a chance to read and understand the place by living it.

Kenan Belal
April 2019