Site Location and Site Conditions:

The holy city of Karbala is currently undergoing rapid urban expansion. A major ring road, together with a green belt encircling the city, is currently being constructed in the desert to the south and south-west to improve mobility for residents and pilgrims, particularly during major religious events. New low-density residential districts are planned along this corridor, designed and built from the ground up in the sands to accommodate the city’s growing middle class.

In many cases, these new urban sprawls replicate some of the worst planning models, characterized by standardized housing units, parcels with identical or nearly identical specifications, and a lack of walkable communities and public green spaces. These approaches are often imported wholesale from the United States, with little adaptation to the region’s cultural context or its harsh climatic conditions. With public transport in Iraq still largely underdeveloped, such planning patterns further reinforce dependence on the private automobile.

The plot lies between the ring road to the south and another major arterial road to the north. Zoning regulations require the upper and lower portions of the site to be allocated for commercial uses, while another section must accommodate a secondary school.

The historic city center and the holy shrines are situated approximately 17 km from the site, with a travel time exceeding 30 minutes by car.

Design Intention and Client’s Goals:

The majority of the development is conceived as a gated community comprising 518 single-family residences, a community park, and a mosque. Beyond the gated enclave, the masterplan incorporates two multi-family residential buildings, a souq-inspired retail area, a secondary school along the northern edge, and a shopping mall composed of two buildings along the southern edge of the plot.

Conventional suburban developments of this type are often defined by extensive networks of straight (or winding streets) monotonously lined with repetitive housing units. Public green spaces, where available, may be located up to a 20-minute walk from some residences — an arrangement that is particularly problematic in a climate where summer temperatures can reach 60°C.

Such conditions not only reduce the quality of life for residents but also diminish the market appeal of these properties, making them more difficult to sell and lowering their overall value.

Iraq has one of the lowest female labor force participation rates globally, with only around 10%–14% of working-age women engaged in the workforce. Consequently, the availability of easily accessible green spaces in close proximity to residential areas is essential for family life, particularly in a context where approximately 36% of the population is aged 0–14 and the majority of women stay at home. Creating opportunities for families to spend time outdoors with neighbours and friends close to their homes, while enabling children to play freely, represents a key value driver for potential buyers and a strong selling point for the property developers in this environment.

It became clear that the most effective strategy to ensure that every residence is within a short 90-meter walking distance of green space was to organize the development around one centrally located park. This park is conceived as a continuous green spine with numerous spaces for different activities, extending from the lower to the upper parts of the site, forming a shaded and walkable corridor that links all residences with the commercial centers at either end of the masterplan.

A network of short cul-de-sac streets, each no longer than 100 meters, leads directly to the central park. With limited vehicular traffic and serving primarily local residents, these tree-lined streets create safe, pedestrian-friendly environments for children to play, evoking the qualities of traditional neighbourhood streets of the old days. The design strategy focused on clustering houses both physically and socially into small communal groups, while reducing street widths to the minimum 12 meters allowed by zoning regulations, enhancing shade and a sense of intimacy within the streetscape, evoking the feel of the traditional sikka alleyways.

The client established three plot size categories — 250 m², 300 m², and 400 m². To mitigate the visual monotony that would result from uniform street compositions, a deliberate strategy was introduced to randomly vary the three plot sizes within each residential block, creating a more dynamic and visually diverse urban fabric. To make things even more picturesque and irregular, we developed four distinct typologies for the houses: two variants tailored to the 250 m² plots — also distributed randomly across the development to enhance variety — and one typology for each of the other two plot sizes.

At some point during the concept design stage, the client came up with a very specific name for the project: “The Greek Village”, drawing inspiration from the traditional Cycladic architecture of the Greek islands. Whitewashed walls paired with doors and window frames painted in ultramarine blue are meant to create a minimalistic aesthetic that will be in stark contrast with the surrounding sand-colored developments (and the desert itself) that the competitors were busy manufacturing at an astoundingly industrial pace. The only element absent that would make the project nearly picture perfect was the bare, rugged hills so characteristic of the Mediterranean.

Design Challenges:

As one of the holiest cities in Islam, Karbala has a highly conservative social context, where all potential privacy concerns must be carefully addressed through the design. Privacy is a fundamental design driver. So, for instance, to preserve privacy, ground-floor windows facing the street and the neighbouring properties had to be therefore carefully controlled to prevent direct eye-level views into interior spaces.

A common developer-led approach is to position houses at the centre of relatively small plots of land and enclose them with perimeter walls of around 1.8 meters in height, prioritising privacy but often at the expense of the quality of both the private outdoor space and the streetscape, with bedroom windows frequently located less than a meter from the plot boundary.

We adopted an alternative approach. We’ve arranged the habitable spaces around a central courtyard, which serves as the primary source of natural light, shade and privacy. Where possible, adjacent buildings are used to help enclose and shelter the courtyard, reducing the need for free-standing perimeter walls.

The project underwent numerous design revisions as adjacent plots were progressively incorporated and the programme expanded. Consequently, the scale of the central park and the range of associated activities were reduced, while the number of residential units increased to maintain financial viability, leading to the abandonment of several interesting design solutions.

Climate and Environmental Strategy:

The design of the houses draws on the traditional Middle Eastern courtyard house typology, where cooler night-time air is retained within the courtyard and gradually released into adjacent spaces during the day, as the courtyard remains largely shaded. Openings are carefully positioned to promote natural air movement, contributing to passive cooling of the interior spaces. However, the use of modern construction materials and the relatively shallow depth of the courtyards will most likely limit the effectiveness of this traditional cooling strategy to the early morning hours.

The park will feature extensive areas of native and climate-adapted vegetation, with recycled water used for irrigation and for non-potable applications such as water features and fountains.