Project Details
- Project Name
- Kabul Urban Design Framework
- Location
-
Kabul ,Afghanistan
- Architect
- Sasaki
- Client/Owner
- Afghanistan Ministry of Urban Development and Land
- Project Types
- Planning
- Project Scope
- New Construction
- Shared by
- Madeleine D'Angelo
- Project Status
- Concept Proposal
This article appeared in the June 2020 issue of ARCHITECT.
In Afghanistan, where economic development and social change have been rapidly gathering pace, President Ashraf Ghani and the Ministry of Urban Development and Housing tasked Boston- and Shanghai-based Sasaki with developing a scheme for the country’s fast-growing capital that gives it the infrastructural capacity to keep pace with its increasing size and complexity while remaining true to its history. The resulting Kabul Urban Design Framework focuses not just on the city’s physical form, but also on its social infrastructure, equally prioritizing concepts such as sustainability, resilience, and equity.
A major hurdle for any new plan for the city is navigating its highly irregular sprawl: New residents flocking to the war-torn city in the hopes of increased security and opportunity have made Kabul the fifth fastest-growing city in the world, but construction has proceeded unchecked, causing traffic snarls and threatening vital resources. Sasaki responded with interventions aimed both at drawing development towards new infrastructural nodes and paring back overdevelopment in key areas. Along the city’s famed Darul Aman Road (built in the 1920s as Kabul’s answer to the Champs-Élysées) and Massoud Boulevard (the primary route to Hamid Karzai International Airport), improved circulation and new armatures will spur the growth of denser, more-coherent neighborhoods, making the corridors magnets for commerce while preserving the active street life.
With a keen eye on sustainability, Sasaki’s plan calls for reintegrating nature into the urban fabric—new parks and areas reserved for farming will provide ample recreational opportunities, foster economic diversity, and protect the city’s fragile water supply, ensuring Kabul a cleaner and greener future.
Project Credits
Project: Kabul Urban Design Framework
Location: Kabul, Afghanistan
Client/Owner: Office of the President of Afghanistan, Ministry of Urban Development and Housing
Architect: Sasaki
Size: 395 Square Miles
Cost: Withheld
Project Description
This project won a 2020 AIA Regional & Urban Design Awards.
FROM THE AIA:
Today, more than 20 years into building a new civil society in Afghanistan, the country’s capital is poised to take advantage of emerging opportunities. Influenced by the intersection of cultures, ecological systems, and political currents, Kabul has long developed organically, leaving many without access to infrastructure or services. This plan sets a vision for Kabul that is sustainable and resilient and helps realize the promise of a burgeoning democracy.
Organized around a citywide framework for urban development and growth as well as corridor designs for two of Kabul’s iconic roads, the plan tackles a host of issues facing the city. In addition, it stretches beyond physical design to affect Kabul’s social fabric, addressing women in the city, higher education opportunities, and the conservation of its culture.
The design-driven agenda faces significant challenges at the metropolitan scale due to the city’s informal development and its population growth of more than 2 million people in just 10 years. The plan’s ambitious growth strategy shifts development away from environmentally sensitive aquifers, restores an agricultural belt, and identifies new locations for educational and economic investment. Shaping any development is a series of typologies the team developed that offer context-sensitive design guidelines for the whole city. This blend of site-specific design and guidance affects other areas of the plan, including ways to integrate the informal settlements that exist beyond the city’s borders.
Plans for commercial corridors along Dar ul-Aman, Afghanistan’s most symbolic road, and Massoud Boulevard, which connects the city to its airport, respond to the surrounding context and cultural history. Along Dar ul-Aman, the team repositions the important six-kilometer corridor as an urban boulevard with three distinct districts, each with their own streetscape and programmatic focus. Given its status as the gateway to the city, Massoud Boulevard represents a chance to demonstrate that investment in social infrastructure and the preservation of social anchors can quickly regenerate neighborhoods.
In total, the plan lays out a vision for the forward-thinking city Kabul can become. Its implementation represents boundless opportunities for millions of Afghans for generations to come.
Project Credits:
Project: Kabul Urban Design Framework
Architects: Sasaki
Level Infrastructure
