Rabat Grand Theatre: перший і останній проект Захи Хідід у Африці

Zaha Hadid’s first project in Africa will be opened in the end of 2019. This is the Rabat Grand Theater on the banks of the Buregreg River, in Morocco. This theater will be equivalent to the Sydney Opera House.

The distinctive and recognizable style of Zahi Hadid is inherent to this project. There are undulating lines, curves, plasticity, perfect adaptation to the surrounding landscape and a sign for the culture of this country.

We will tell you more about this project.

The Grand Theater is part of the cultural-development program of the Bouregreg valley, where the cities of Rabat and Salé are situated. It is important that the electricity for the Theater will be provided by the Bouregreg River. The cultural-development program was initiated by King Mohammed VI. The integrated city development model will combine cultural heritage and environment, as well as recreate the natural landscape of the area.

The theatrical complex will become the central element of this area. By the way, the total area of this new district is 6,000 hectares. The construction of the Theater occupies 27,000 sq.m. The project includes the Large Theater for 1,800 seats and an open-air amphitheatre for 7,000 seats, one small theater, workshops, shops, restaurants, cultural and recreational attractions that are world-class achievements. The cost of the project is over $140 million.

To create the main hall, the Theater’s specialty, the architect was inspired by muqarnas. This is traditional Moroccan monumental architecture. There are decorative arches and ceilings as well as cornices resembling honeycombs, and creating the game of light and shadow.

Soft wave-like curves fall to the ground and merge with the landscape. The Theater is built as a building in the building. Its interior spaces are structurally isolated from the outside. The concrete facade is reinforced with steel mesh and covers the whole form of the building. Due to lighting around the facade, front windows, large glass entrances, it seems that the building glows from the inside. Spotlights are inside the Theater. Their light emphasizes the carved golden walls of the building and adds exquisiteness to it. Instead, the amphitheatre has a subtle continuous illumination only on stairs and borders.

Each Hadid’s project is an example of innovation. The 3D modelling and innovative programming was required for this large complex building of unusual shape. In addition, the surrounding landscape is prone to seismicity, so the architects still had the task of creating a safe building. When they started working on the project in 2010, they used 2D modelling. Since the geometry of design is rather complicated, later they chose newer technologies. These were 3D modelling and ВІМ.

For building documentation, the team used Autodesk Revit and LOD 200, which is almost equivalent to BIM Level 1. These technologies in the construction industry at that time were not very developed, and the industry experienced a critical shortage of specialists. So, as a solution to this problem, the architectural bureau Zaha Hadid Architects created a group of ВІМ, which simultaneously studied and worked on the geometry of this building. A special plugin for Revit – ZHA BIM – was developed. It was able to remove the original geometry from the 3D modelling tools and attribute all the necessary information to the 3D components. This plugin was integrated with Autodesk Maya, which provided the ability to implement this qualitatively sophisticated project.

Due to the use of innovative technologies, it was possible to coordinate work and change designs, optimally select the materials and achieve the planned result.