Articles by Hana Abdel

Interior design plan for the Blue Bottle Coffee Fukuoka Tenjin Cafe, which marks its first branch in the Kyushu region. The planned location is a distinct one in the Tenjin area of Fukuoka city, situated within the precincts of the Kego Shrine. While one side of the cafe faces a busy street with heavy traffic, the opposite side opens onto the approach to the shrine, surrounded by moderate greenery and a tranquil atmosphere contrasting with the busy environment of the city. Given this contrasting setting, we naturally envisioned the cafe as a nexus connecting the opposing elements of “city” and “shrine.”

Prologue: New Downtown Church – We believe that there is another landscape created when a new building blends into the existing landscape, so we consider it very important to read and understand the context and landscape around the site in the design process. However, Banwol-dong, Hwaseong-si, where the subject site of this project is located, is a neighborhood that is shaping a new downtown through urban development projects. Therefore, there were two main points we focused on in this project. First, “What should the church look like in the new landscape being created, not the existing landscape?” Second, “What should the church look like in the urban landscape?”. Although most buildings have a long lifespan, churches, especially, are places that connect religion and people, so they repair old buildings and expand them when space is lacking, always standing in the same place. Since we fully understood this, designing the church, which will stand here for a long time in the future, was a very careful and cautious task. Moreover, since the surrounding landscape was in the transitional phase of being created, we did not know how it would turn out, but we thought it should be made to match the future completed landscape. Fortunately, the site was being developed through an urban development project, and it was clear that the building would be located in an urban landscape in the future. In conclusion, we came up with a simple and calm church that would naturally blend into the urban landscape and match whatever the surrounding landscape would look like.

As the first multispeciality hospital in Maharashtra’s infrastructure-starved Dolvi village, the JSW Sanjeevani Hospital not only provides better healthcare to the local community but also facilitates the region’s economic and infrastructural growth. The hospital prioritizes physical and emotional well-being by integrating nature, art, and social spaces.

A narrative of architectural brilliance gracefully unfolds in the bustling heart of Coimbatore, where tradition fuses with modernity. Amongst the lively cityscape, a haven of tranquillity emerges a home inspired by Spanish haciendas crafted by the talented duo Jasem Pirani and Huzefa Rangwala of MuseLAB. Their most ambitious project was also their greatest challenge. It isn’t just MuseLAB’s largest so far but also their first of its kind. All while adhering to the principles of Manaiyadi Shastram, an ancient science that is native to Southern India, which mandated certain sizes and specifications in the layout.

The Through House project was crafted for a billiards-loving doctor and his two daughters seeking solace away from the city in San Fernando, Pampanga, Philippines. Nestled within a gated community of modest plots, the design sought to expand the perception of space on the relatively small lot. Inspired by the success of a previous project, Viewpoint House, the studio aimed for minimal materiality while maximizing spatial potential. The design achieved a calm and liberating ambiance by embracing thoroughness in various aspects—space, views, light, ventilation, connectedness, and interaction.

Marine House represents a moment in time when the world was re-evaluating itself. In late 2020, we were tasked with the project of reimagining a somewhat tired 1980s compact project home into a lockdown and potentially long-term family home for a family of six; we threw ourselves into the romance of all that a bush-inspired yet sophisticated family home could be.

This is a plan for a house with a small baked sweets store located in a quiet residential area after passing through the shopping street in front of the station. Although the site is a flagpole lot, one long east side faces a large parking lot, so there is no particular sense of enclosure but rather an open feeling as if it were facing a park. Although the residents can enjoy the open environment for a while, this parking lot is also considered to be a fading thing like a park or a production green space, and the east side is a garden that adjusts the distance from the city.

On the crowded 560 square-meter area, approximately 100 meters from the Ratchayothin intersection, the context of this land is surrounded by apartments, schools, and residences. We questioned how we could design this house to be private but yet still connected to the context of the main city, considering what would affect the privacy of the house and the owner. Due to the living space conditions and the size of the land, this house has been designed vertically by necessity.