Place-making of transit towns in Qatar: The case of qatar national museum-souq waqif corridor

Over the last two decades, Doha, the capital city of Qatar, has undergone rapid urbaniza-tion. The city has capitalized large-scale urban and infrastructural projects resulting in a loss of his-torical areas of heritage value to people. Recent construction of the Doha Metro is opening avenues for place-making of transit towns through a framework envisioned by the need to shape compact, livable and sustainable neighborhoods and to mitigate the effects of urbanization on valuable his-torical heritage sites. Due to its historic significance, the Qatar National Museum (QNM)-Souq Waqif corridor is the case study selected for exploring and defining a framework for a contextual-ized place-making transit-oriented development (TOD) model. The research design is structured by reviewing the literature about TODs and the need for place-making model in Qatar, followed by collecting visual data from municipal authorities, through site visits, and site observations. The data are then analyzed to propose a novel masterplan, rooted in key urban design components of place-making. The insights will contribute to proposals for context-driven design strategies to enhance livability of the site and to extend its application to other potential transit hubs in metropolitan Doha and in the Middle East.This research study was developed under two grant schemes awarded by Qatar University: Grant ID: NATIONAL CAPACITY BUILDING PROGRAM-NCB-S1—Titled: Re-thinking a Framework for the Urban Regeneration and Preservation of the Transit Villages of Old Salata, QNM, Msheireb and Souq Waqif, along the Cultural-Heritage Doha-Metro Corridor; Grant ID: QUST-1-CENG-2021-16—titled: A Holistic Strategy for the Urban Regeneration of the Souq Waqif Neighbourhood. English editing, proof-reading, and open access (OA) publication fees of this paper were supported by Qatar University (Grant ID: QUST-1-CENG-2021-16)