RW Armstrong provided concept design services for architectural and landscape design of Al Najada hotel and bank in Doha, Qatar. The project was part of design competition by the Private Engineering Office.

The project is located near Souq Waqif and the client intended to construct a luxurious hotel with five star facilities and standards and a bank at the underground in the same building. The hotel is to be ground level plus five storeys and two below level parking areas to be designed in traditional Qatari style.

RW Armstrong provided a design that matched the old traditional market of Souq Waqif and enriched the historical feature of the area in a harmonized way via scale, massing, architectural language, courtyard and circulation connections, and material selections.

The retail component requires a particular energy, climate comfort and visibility to be successful and the team provided two zones featuring shaded walks and visible facades off the streets and well sized open public squares linked directly with the souq character area. A cultural villa/museum component centers itself as the memorable icon in the intimate public square to create a sense of place making and destination quality for marketing and tourism opportunities. The bank location is visible on the main street corner as an identity marker for the development, easy access and visually linked to the grand court tower for a magnetic axis that reminds of the life and culture that awaits there.