Abstract
Over the last half-century, Qatar has witnessed an excessive change in its economic and urban evolution. From the coastal village where fishing and pearling were the main activities of its community to a country with an ambitious vision for the future. Due to economic booming of oil/gas discovery in early 1940, Qatar's urban context drastically changed as the urbanization process has been accelerated. As our economy, populations, and community grow over time, rapid urban development rates have been accelerated and the consequent negative environmental and climatic impacts on our cities are accelerated as well especially with high land demands for housing, commercial, mixed uses, transportation, and community facilities uses. In addition, on 2 December 2010, FIFA appointed Qatar as the host for WORLD CUP 2022. Such factors imposed even further economic prosperity and rapid urban growth rates over the last decade. During such a rapid urban development process and the associated challenges to create a liveable environment was of high priority to the Qatar National Master Plan. Hence, greater attention needed to be placed on the landscape design of our outdoor open spaces to ensure that they contribute to the creation of vibrant, healthy, and liveable cities. Qatar National Development Framework addressed the strategic importance to establish Qatar National Landscape design guidelines (QNLDG). One of the main principles of the project is to cover the holistic approach of landscape and how it is imperative to understand that landscape is not merely trees-related nor city beautifications. It is one of the principal mediums to organize and shape urban places. It creates character and identity of places, and it operates at any level, both in regional and local scale. Qatar landscape design guidelines encourage the use of landscaping to address many of the existing challenges of the urban environment by providing a national reference and guide on what constitutes as good place-making practice for Qatar context including beautification, shading, reduction of urban heat-island effect, natural habitat, soil stabilization, visual perception, and many other aspects. The guidelines were established based on an extensive benchmark for world best practices in landscape design as well as deep analysis for Qatar’s unique characteristics and challenges. A key objective of the guidelines is to meet these challenges while also conserving valuable water, energy, and other natural resources in Qatar’s arid desert climate. Qatar landscape design guidelines report, in conclusion, is organized into six main chapters focusing on landscape urbanism as an integral part of the city-making process, where everything apart from buildings is associated and treated as ‘landscape’. Landscape urbanism in this context covers all: open spaces, movement corridors, streets, alleyways, parks, plazas, waterfronts, green corridors, street furniture, front spaces of plots, fences, pavements, trees, soft cape elements, and many other design elements, that are located within urban areas. The Guidelines demystify the interrelationship of three main design elements of place-making: landscape, built form, and movement. The QLSDG is a toolkit for all those involved with urban design issues, at any level, in Qatar where the landscape was introduced as one of the main indicators to judge the most livable cities.
