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White Hutchinson Leisure & Learning Group, Kansas City, MO, USA

Middle East & MENA Leisure Project Experience

Engr. Saeed Al Kuwari, Director of our Doha, Qatar Middle East office.

Our company has been working in the Middle East, MENA region and Arab world since 1998 when we first conducted a feasibility study and prepared preliminary designs for a children's edutainment center in Doha, Qatar. Since then, we designed and produced LouLou Al Dugong's (www.whitehutchinson.com/ leisure/ loulou.shtml) , a children's play & discovery center in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and have worked on the feasibility and design of other projects in the Middle East and MENA region in Al Ain and Abu Dhabi, U.A.E.; Sana'a, Yemen; Manama, Bahrain; Kuwait City, Kuwait; Amman, Jordan; Kuwait, and Riyadh and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Rabat, Morocco; Beirut, Lebanon and Cairo, Egypt.

To better manage our increasing number of Middle East projects, in 2005 we opened a Middle East office in Doha, Qatar managed by Engr. Saeed Al Kuwari our Middle East Director. As of mid 2012, we have worked on the feasibility, design and consulting for these Middle East projects:

• Beirut, Lebanon – Achrafieh Mall – Designing a family entertainment center for Achrafieh Mall, Beirut’s most upscale mall. The FEC will include attractions never introduced to Beirut and will take advantage of the vertical store space to maximize both entertainment value and entertainment capacity.
• Middle East mall – Working with the developer of a new 250,000-square-meter mall in the Arabian Gulf region of the Middle East with how to best integrate and design entertainment into the mall’s overall design and the type of entertainment and attractions that should be offered for both families and adults. There will  be 10,000 square meters of indoor and 17,000 square meters of outdoor entertainment not including a large cinema.
• Cairo, Egypt – Club Liko – (6th of October) Completed market and financial feasibility study and full architectural and interior design for a 2,300-square-meter ladies club and children’s edutainment center named Club Liko (www.whitehutchinson.com/ leisure/ aboutclubliko.shtml) .
• Kuwait City, Kuwait – Feasibility and concept development and design for a two-story, 7,300-square-meter children's edutainment and enrichment center.
• Dubai, U.A.E. – Concept design for edutainment Children's Academy with 12 children's enrichment workshops for school field trips, scheduled classes and drop-in classes.
• Jeddah, Dhahran & Riyadh, Saudi Arabia – Smart Kids (Abcarino) children's edutainment and enrichment center.
• LouLou Al Dugong's, Dubai, UAE – designed and produced this 2.300 square meter children's edutainment (play & discovery) center.
• Manama, Bahrain – feasibility and preliminary design of a 3.700 square meter children's edutainment, entertainment and enrichment (play & discovery) center that includes a discovery play garden and rooftop zero-depth spray grounds (spraypads).
• Abu Dhabi, U.A.E. – preliminary designs for renovation and expansion of the Space City family entertainment center.
• Amman, Jordan – site evaluation and preliminary feasibility for a mixed-use family-oriented center with retail shops, restaurants, family entertainment center, birthday party center and cinemas, in both an enclosed mall and outside landscaped garden settings.
• Doha, Qatar – mixed-use mall type project with retail, restaurants, cinemas, children's edutainment and enrichment, family entertainment, amusement, bowling, ice skating, a party and celebration center, hotel and indoor waterpark.
• Sana'a, Yemen – family entertainment addition to a retail mall.
• Kuwait – feasibility and design of a 8.000 square meter children's edutainment and enrichment center and 4.000 square meter food court.
• Dubai, UAE – design and curriculum development for the Children's Academy (school field trip and children's enrichment class center) in the Stargate Family Entertainment Center.
• Rabat, Morocco – feasibility and master plan for a children's entertainment center.
• Doha, Qatar – market and financial feasibility and concept plan for a children's edutainment center.
• Abu Dhabi, U.A.E. – feasibility and preliminary design for a family entertainment center to be located in a mall.
• Beirut, Lebanon – assisted the Children's Interactive Community (CIC) NGO with development of their strategic plan, mission and planning for their new headquarters facility.

The Middle East, and especially the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries of the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and Oman, is undergoing rapid growth and expansion with many new entertainment and leisure projects. Different than projects in Dubai that target the tourist market, most of our projects are designed to target the local Arab population. Unlike many design and consulting firms who sell Middle Eastern clients standard Western design solutions, we pride ourselves in our practice of not literally exporting Western designs and concepts for our Middle Eastern projects. Instead, we take pride in being culturally sensitive and custom designing projects to meet the needs, tastes, values and customs of the Locals. For most of our projects, we undertake extensive ethnographic and focus group research with mothers to understand the local area's unique culture, including its traditions, customs, values, and traditions of leisure, so we can design the projects to maximize their appeal to the local residents. Our staff has worked with many ethnic groups and Islamic cultures, and is culturally competent to recognize and respect the unique attributes of Arab and Islamic cultures and design a project that is appropriate and respectful to that culture. A number of our projects

Also see:

• International Leisure Project Experience
• Designing FECs for the International Market: Imitation is the Quickest Course to Bankruptcy
• The Role of Culture in Location-Based Leisure Design
• Beware of the Western Conquistadores (www.whitehutchinson.com/ leisure/ articles/ 104.shtml)
• A Multi-cultural Challenge: Designing for Children in Dubai 
• The Importance of Cultural Competence to Location-Based Leisure Projects

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