Construction Week Middle East's video: CW Expert Interview: Pace s Tarek Shuaib on the future of design being agile during COVID

In the latest episode of the Expert Interviews series, Construction Week’s digital editor, Ranju Warrier sits down virtually with Tarek Shuaib, the CEO of Pace, one of the region's premier architecture, design, engineering, and planning firms, to talk about the company’s approach to the future of design, how it is delivering its current projects and staying agile in the time of COVID-19, and working on government-led projects. Recently, Pace unveiled details about its work on the Amiri Diwan of Kuwait’s Palace of Justice project, which comes as part of Kuwait’s plans to modernise its judicial system. Talking about what makes the project unique, Shuaib says: “This project is one of the unique projects for us in Kuwait because we asked ourselves how many times do you actually build a central court palace for the country.” “So, we took it on quite seriously, because it is a civic building, and it has to cater to the public. We were mandated by the Amiri Diwan to do the full architecture services here in Kuwait as well as project management and supervising the construction with our associates on-site. So far, we have completed about 42% of the construction works. “We have a symbolic modern abstract design where we have quite a sturdy building from the outside, which kind of shelters you and protects you from a symbol we consider outside forces. At the same time, we have this delicate geo-lateral almost Middle Eastern architectural typology of glass on the inside. This kind of balance between materiality reflects, in a way, the justice system. And then this building itself has an elevated civic plaza where you can see the city on one side and the sea and the institutional buildings on the other. It sits at the heart of the institutional area of Kuwait.” Pace has been associated with both government-led projects and the ones developed by private developers. Explaining how different it is to work on these projects, Shuaib says: “I think it is good to work on both when you practice because one feeds into each other. What's different about the government structures, is perhaps that some of the upfront bidding processes can be a little bit longer because of the different authorities that it has to go through.” “But depending on the agency that you are working with, as a client during the design phase, it can vary differently. At the same time, you must make sure that you take into account all the functions of the building, which may be more varied.” Shuaib stresses that private and public buildings, in fact, live off each other. The government buildings will be used by various people, hence these need to be designed in a way that makes it easy to use and friendly to the public and provides institutional value for the organisation. For more interesting updates, watch the full video. PRODUCER Ranju Warrier ranju.warrier@itp.com EDITING Ashford Fernandez SUBSCRIBE TO OUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL: https://www.youtube.com/c/constructionweekonlinecom READ MORE ON OUR WEBSITE: http://constructionweekonline.com FIND US ON FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/constructionweekonline/ FOLLOW US ON TWITTER: https://twitter.com/cwmiddleeast TUNE IN TO OUR SOUNDCLOUD STREAM: https://soundcloud.com/constructionweek FOLLOW US ON INSTAGRAM: https://instagram.com/constructionweek/ © ITP MEDIA GROUP