Ain Ghazal Interpretation Park (Macro scale)

Site: A hilly land lies on the intersection point of Marka, Tareq and Basman districts at the end of Al-Jaish
highway and Al-Shaheed highway, Amman.

Program: Interpretation center, resource center, archeological sheltering, multi-purpose halls, (LRT) sub-terminal,
restaurants, retail shops, cinemas.
How to make a new beginning in Eastern Amman?

Ain Ghazal is a strategic location that has so far kept East of Amman intact, an expansion zone that enables the city - even the country - to modernize itself constantly, to make the tactical adjustments neces-
ary boundaries and nodes had to be identified. It is a theatre of progress that cradles diverse elements and most importantly archeological ruins. The existing is an ambiguous condition. Because Ain Ghazal is
the Old World, the "Cradle of history”, there is an unspoken assumption that all its substance - even the most - mediocre - is historic, and therefore has a right to eternal life.

We have used this project to generate a critical mass of urban renewal, to imagine an anti-utopian strategy that would transform and interpret the archeology of Ain Ghazal as the gradual, progressive transformation of this chaotic "beyond” into a new urban system. We propose to project a set of slices across the entire field of the project’s area - over all that exists including the present enclave of the Water Treatment Plant- and to expose progressively this new system as play of solid and void.The chosen slice here is at the same time conceptual and operational; it will not subject everything in its way to its discipline but will act as a filter to absorb those entities whose right to survive is not contested. Along its entire perimeter it will generate a string of hybrids. To achieve its ultimate coherence, it will invest the so far isolated fragments with a premonition of identity.

The theoretical omnipresence of the slice does not imply homogeneous density: it will organize the coexistence of solid and void, density and emptiness. Around certain injections, the slice will allow different intensification where the highway will become almost incidental.
Ain Ghazal as we know it will be liberated from its condition of enclave will dissolve over time to become simply part of the system.
Moreover the project will mainly be concentrated on the banks becoming irrevocable linear, with a mass of program distributed along a 500m long link perpendicular to thebstream, the impact would be diluted -literally.

Therefore our research concentrated on the areas where the combination of infrastructure and locations would form a critical mass. Because the largest potential concentrates are the spots with most pinching shortage of space - the Western side- being the sheltering where the entire zone should be interpreted as a sequence of {four equivalent situations}, with two enclosed (buildings) and three opennair sections in between.While the Eastern side is the most suitable location for concentration.

Team: Rasem Kamal, Heba Najada, Yousef Zaki

Ain Ghazal Interpretation Park (Macro scale) by Rasem Kamal in Jordan won the WA Award Cycle 5. Please find below the WA Award poster for this project.