Category: Design

Taken from Skyscraper City:

This is a proposal for a Hyatt Regency hotel and full-fledged convention center that was proposed way back in 1975. I can’t help but be completely floored by this concept – the hotel and overall complex look absolutely massive! The hotel building itself has a timeless classicism to it; I think it would cohesively fit in with all the modern, glassy buildings we have today while retaining its 70s feel. This could have been our equivalent of the Sheraton in Doha, which began construction way back in 1978 and opened in 1980. That Sheraton is one of Doha’s iconic landmarks today, something Qataris are proud of. –ChaoticTranquility

Client: Kuwait Hotels Co.
Location: Kuwait City, Kuwait
Starting Date: 1975
Completion: 1977
Cost: 33,000,000 KD

Project Description:
The site of Hayatt Regency Kuwait on Kuwait Bay, overlooks a traditionaly landscaped Arab park in downtown Kuwait City. The focus of six floor, 586 room luxury hotel will be a large landscaped atrium lobby. Restaurants, commercial space, recreational facilities, service amenities and the hotel rooms will face on the atrium. The fully air-conditioned hotel will feature 16 special duplex suites on thetop two floors in addition to its many luxury suites. An adjoining conference center, similar in character to the United Nations General Assembly Hall, will provide seating for 700 presons. Fixed seating for 400 will be placed on the main floor with 300 filling the balcony, which can be subdivided for smaller conferences. Parking for 885 cars will be below grade. Recreatinal activities such as swimming and boating and the hotel’s health club will be linked to the hotel by an underpass to the beach. [Source]

If you follow me on Twitter or Instagram you might have seen the tshirt pictured above. I wasn’t planning to post about it just yet since the tshirt isn’t available yet but I also didn’t expect to get a lot of emails asking about it.

Those of you who’ve been reading blogs for quite some time might remember a blogger called Tatabotata. Well he shutdown his blog ages ago but it’s going to be relaunched again soon as a tshirt store. He used to have a lot of cool and controversial tshirt designs back then (snapshot here) and when he showed me the design above last year I told him I wanted first dibs which is how I became his first customer (and #1 fan).

If you also want this tshirt or his others you will have to wait until his website goes live which is very soon. Right now you can sign up to be notified when his tshirts go live so if you’re interested you can head over to his website [Tatabotata.com]

A short documentary by TJC Films on Bruha Eve, a talented artist from the Philippines living in Kuwait. I found it a bit slow but I’m not into art myself so I’ll let you be the judge. [YouTube]

Alghunaim Photo contacted me last week asking me if I’d be interested in reviewing the Spyder4Pro monitor color calibration tool. Since I’ve always wanted to try one of those tools I passed by and picked it up and then spent the weekend playing around with it.

Every monitor displays colors differently and my 27″ iMac never really felt very accurate when compared to other screens around the house. Even though there is an option built into the Mac system to calibrate the color, it involves a lot of eye squinting and results in a final calibration that I don’t trust. The Spyder takes away all the decision making from me, kinda like a little robot with a focus on keeping the colors on my screen calibrated.

First thing you need to do is install the Spyder software and connect the Sypder to a free USB port on your computer. When you run the software the first test it performs is to measure the ambient light in your room using the light sensor on the Spyder. Once it’s done measuring the light the software then asks you to hang the Spyder on top of the illustrated Spyder on the screen. The Spyder software then proceeds to perform a bunch of tests displaying various colors on the screen while the Spyder measures the results. After a few minutes the test is completed and you’re given an option to either save the new settings or go back to your previous one. You can also compare the new settings with the old one and they even provide you with a variety of pictures to use for comparison.

The best way to perform the before and after comparison is turn away from the screen while changing from one setting to the other. By flipping between the before and after I realized that before the Syder calibration my iMac screen colors were a very cool tone (cool = more towards the blue). After the calibration the colors are more balanced and even the screen brightness which was absurdly bright before is in a much more natural state after the calibration.

All is not good though since I do have a few quibbles here and there but they’re mostly the fault of Datacolor the company and not the Spyder product. My biggest issue is with the documentation or should I say lack of it. The manual doesn’t really tell you about any of the features of the Spyer and it’s also out dated. According to the manual the way to hang the Spyder onto the screen during the tests is with the help of the supplied rubber bands. But the model I got didn’t have any rubber bands and used a simpler newer method using a movable counter weight on the cable. Because of the lack of documentation there’s one feature that’s still confusing me. When connected to your computer the Spyder continuously measures the ambient room light and informs you with a a red icon if the light is different from when calibrated. What’s confusing me is what to do when the ambient light doesn’t match the one the test was performed with? Do I calibrate the display with different ambient light? Do I perform a test during the day and a test during the night? Do I switch between the different color settings myself? I have no idea what to do and the Datacolor website doesn’t even have the latest manuals uploaded yet alone answers to my questions. If you actually do end up purchasing the Spyder I would actually recommend you visit the product page on Amazon where one reviewer has a step by step guide on how to set everything up. That’s how poor the product’s documentation is.

But, even with the poor documentation I’ve still decided I’m going to purchase the Spyder4pro. The thing is it works and it works really well. Within just a few minutes after setting up to your computer you’ll start seeing results and the difference in some cases can be dramatic. It’s really something every serious photographer should have and also anyone doing any sort of design work. I highly recommend it.

Usually at the end of a review I’d proceed to place links to Amazon but in this case Alghunaim actually sells the Syper for prices slightly less than Amazon. He has three models in the store priced as following:

Spyder4expree KD38
Spyder4pro KD45
Spyder4elite KD65

The three Spyders are similar but each offers additional features than the other model. To see which one is suitable for you check out the chart [Here]

I’m going with the Spyder4Pro because it has the ambient light sensor which is missing from the Spyder4express and I also don’t really need any of the extra features from the Spyder4elite.

Alghunaim Photo is located in Baitak Tower in Kuwait City. Here my my previous post about them [Link]

I previously read Jazeera was getting their own terminal and I’m guessing this design is it. [Images Source]

The quote below is taken from the Jazeera Airways website:

Jazeera Airways Terminal
We are on track to have moved some 4 million passengers by end 2008 and project passengers in excess of 8 m by 2012. The Jazeera Airways custom built dedicated terminal is our response to protect the integrity of our service offerings and offer the passengers a dedicated Jazeera Experience that is second to none and maintain our On Time excellence. [Source]

Thanks Othman

I just found out Alshaya are bringing Muji to Kuwait! Their first store is set to open this year at The Avenues. How cool is that? [Source]

What else do we need in Kuwait? Here’s what I think Alshaya should get next:

– Selfridges
– Pret A Manger
– In N Out
– Barnes & Noble

Thanks Joseph

Patrick over at Projekt Cyan created the full alphabet with places in Kuwait using Google Earth. I think that’s such a random project but that’s what makes it very cool. Check out his post [Here]

Google Earth Alphabet – Kuwait from Patrick Semaan on Vimeo.

Early Bird’s Bianca took the picture above and it looks like it’s by the same person that did “I want your love” which His&Hers posted about yesterday. Interesting…

Update: Just found out there’s another one as well, “I want your faith“

Mo is a 22 year old Kuwaiti student currently studying at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. When I first saw some of his illustrations they instantly grabbed my attention since I found them very strange. I contacted him by email and spoke to him regarding his thoughts and future plans.

According to Mo his illustrations come from the core of his personality, it’s who he truly is without the filters of ego and peer pressures. He’s also excited about coming back to Kuwait after he graduates since he feels there is a lot of potential now more than ever for Kuwait to generate culture on its own.

A lot of culture in Kuwait is homogenized, it comes from the West for the most part. There is the traditional Kuwaiti culture, but that is really just a backdrop being humored for the popular culture, the influx of movies and other entertainment is where the interest of younger and even older generations truly lie. People today have the wonderful luxury of taking in media from around the world, and I think some of the talented and passionate people in Kuwait today are digesting influences from both Western and Eastern creators into their subconscious minds. Something that has popped up in the GCC area has been the advent of interesting and funny animated programs, not to mention the lauded 99 comic book series. I believe that I can help contribute to this newly generating culture, and offer something different than the humor of the animated series and the super-hero stories of the 99.

He’s got a bunch of his illustrations up on his blog which you can check by clicking [Here]

Going by the trailer it looks like a pretty interesting and well made documentary. Makes me look at Saudi Arabia in a completely different light. [YouTube]

Thanks Nocolor

This new school is designed to promote experimental teaching, to branch away from the rote memorization model of learning that ensures that most Kuwaitis have zero knowledge of their agricultural history. To implement a more hands on approach, the designer created plenty of outdoor space at grade and even on the school’s roof.

An interesting project designed by Perkins + Will but like all the other cool projects popping up I hope this one gets built as well. Note the sheep on the roof. [Link]

A presentation of the new Kuwait Airport by Foster+Partners. [YouTube]

Update: I’ve updated the video link to a working one.

I hope this actually gets built. Find out more about this project [Here]

I promise this will be my last basketball post. Turns out the Kuwait Club’s basketball team’s uniform is ripped off from NBA’s Washington’s Wizards. How funny and sad is that? It even made it to the Washington Post! [Link]

Thanks Walker

kuwait tv – fillers presentation from infofillers© on Vimeo.

Looks good but if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it still make a sound?