Boston-area architect capitalizes on assignment in Kabul

Courtesy Photo | An early rendering of the Presidential Information and Coordination Center.  

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN

05.31.2011

Courtesy Story

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Transatlantic Afghanistan District

By Paul Giblin

KABUL – Massachusetts architect Bogdan Figiel, a civilian employee of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers who has worked in Afghanistan since January 2010, is leaving a permanent mark on the country.

He designed a $7.3 million government building that’s being constructed on the presidential palace grounds in Kabul, across a courtyard from Afghan president Hamid Karzai’s office. The new Presidential Information and Coordination Center will house intelligence functions, bolstering the Afghan government’s ability to fight insurgent forces that operate in the country.

It’s expected to be completed in the spring of 2013.

The building marked the first of its type that Figiel has designed. It’s also the highlight of his career to date. In the United States, he generally designs office buildings and laboratories. In Afghanistan, he typically designs offices and living quarters for Afghan and U.S. personnel at bases across Afghanistan.

Col. Thomas Magness, the commander of the Corps of Engineers in northern Afghanistan, said Figiel’s work underscores the value of the organization’s mission to build army bases, police stations, roads, airstrips and other infrastructure projects in Afghanistan.

“We often state boldly that we are the world’s premier public engineering organization,” Magness said. “We are able to deploy halfway around the world and design something of strategic importance with one of our own, an architect from Boston.”

Figiel won a design competition among Corps of Engineers architects working in Kabul in the fall of 2010. With little guidance from Karzai and other Afghan officials concerning the appearance of the building, Figiel took a risk and designed a building that had strong classical features inspired by historic European buildings.

In contrast, the other architects in the competition presented strong modern designs. He was impressed by their designs, which he said were completely different, but equally as daring. “It was stiff competition, I have to tell you,” said Figiel, who lives in Canton, Mass., and started a two-year tour in Kabul in January 2010.

Karzai selected Figiel’s classical design.

Figiel opted for a classical look after visiting the presidential palace complex, which has remained relatively untouched by decades of war and conflict. “This is one of very few compounds that still has buildings that survived many ups and downs in Afghanistan,” he said.

Many of the buildings, including the buildings closest to the Presidential Information and Coordination Center site, were built in the late 1800s. Architecturally, the surrounding buildings blend muted classical features with Islamic flourishes. Few are in their original states. Most have been expanded, adapted and reworked over the decades to accommodate the needs of succeeding generations.

A relatively tight budget and limited space for the new building presented important design considerations. “It was my initial impression – and my challenge – that I was supposed to design something that would complement the presidential palace, and at the same time, fit nicely in the surroundings,” Figiel said.

The compound is walled and compact. Buildings line a narrow street that encircles a courtyard. Existing structures are two or three stories tall, and Karzai has a view of the site from his presidential office.

“The presidential palace is only two stories, so I knew that if Karzai was going to have an interest in this new building, he wouldn’t want it dominating his own quarters,” Figiel said.

The architect, who was born and raised in Poland, tried to envision a building with interesting features that would simultaneously match its surroundings and stand prominently on its own. He took cues from the classical features of near-by buildings, but he opted for a more traditional Old World design compared to the other structures on the compound.

Figiel, 55, always has had an eye for classical architecture. He earned a bachelor’s degree in structural engineering from Cracow University of Technology in Cracow, Poland, in 1983. He immigrated to the United States in 1989, gained citizenship in 1992, and earned a master’s degree in architecture from the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence in 2001.

He didn’t use any particular existing building as a reference when he designed the Presidential Information and Coordination Center, but he incorporated centuries-old classical ideas and themes.
He designed the building with three sections – a center segment featuring a pronounced entrance, and two symmetrical wings. Since there’s no space for a plaza in front of the building, he knew that creating space at the front entrance was an essential.

“I decided to break the plane, push the center back, and at the same time pull out a gate as the main opening,” he said. By recessing the center of the building away from the street, he created space for a portico, a grand porch, framed by columns. Stairs ascend in the front, while ramps lead to the same landing from the sides, hidden from view behind two sets of double columns. The ramps are important because there’s no space for loading ramps or service doors in the rear of the building, so deliveries will be made through the front doors, Figiel said.

The columns support a roof that both provides shade and accents a 2½-story atrium window that was intended to produce a sense of grandeur. He drew two versions of the portico roof – one with a strictly classical round arch and one with an Islamic-inspired crescent arch.

He researched Afghan history and art in search of a symbol that he could incorporate into the support framework for the window wall, but he couldn’t find anything that suited his purpose. Next, he scoured photos of the country for inspiration and he came up with the idea of using grass.

Grass, Figiel said, seemed to symbolize strength, because it’s the first plant to break up Afghanistan’s harsh deserts and the first plant to re-grow in areas scarred by warfare. He designed a graceful, swaying support structure representational of a single strand of grass.

He also extended the height of the second story of the building beyond usual proportions. The second story is 1½ stories tall, which gives the building classic proportions. He emphasized the height further with a series of narrow windows positioned between columns around the entire exterior.

He presented two options for decorative elements called pediments above the second-floor windows. He designed both classical round arches and Islamic-inspired crescent arches.

He opted for masonry construction techniques, specifically concrete with stucco and stone finishes, in keeping with other buildings in the area. Finally, he incorporated classical details, including a continuous stone veneer foundation called a plinth, and a pronounced stone overhang at the top called a cornice.

For the interior, Figiel envisioned a grand lobby behind the atrium window on the first floor and a large room that could be used for meetings and press conferences on the second floor. Both would be lit by natural sunlight though the massive window. He clustered sensitive information-gathering and communications equipment in a secure basement, and placed offices and workspaces in the wings.

Then he submitted his plans for the competition. “I knew that I was taking a huge risk at that point, because it wasn’t modern in the sense of the use of steel and glass,” he said.

Karzai selected the classical plan, then surprised Figiel with his attention to architectural details. All clients provide some design suggestions, but the Afghan leader took a particularly strong interest in the nuances, the architect said.

“I went to present the project and the ideas,” Figiel said. “He was already very much familiar with it. He wanted to talk about the details.” Karzai selected the crescent arches, and ordered changes to the atrium window, the lobby and the first-floor and second-floor windows.

The president noted that grass isn’t a part of Afghan culture, so he quashed the concept of a grass-inspired support structure for the window wall. He opted instead for a customary alignment with vertical and horizontal supports.

The president also asked Figiel to widen all the windows around the building to allow in more natural light. Wide windows, Karzai pointed out, is typical of Afghan architecture. Karzai acknowledged that wide windows allow more heat as well as more light, but he explained that heat isn’t the foremost consideration for his countrymen.

“He was adamant,” Figiel said. The architect obliged and expanded the windows from 1 meter wide to 1.3 meters wide.

Finally, Karzai scuttled the idea of a large conference room on the second story of the central section of the building. Instead, he wanted the entire atrium space opened to create an even statelier lobby. Karzai even sketched a concept for a grand staircase leading to the second floor.

Based on that idea, Figiel and Karzai came up with a revised concept of matching curved staircases at the back of the lobby, ascending to interior galleries that provide views to the first floor. Figiel found space elsewhere in the building to accommodate a conference room.

In the weeks that followed, teams of structural, mechanical and electrical engineers and as well as architects at the Corps of Engineers’ Middle East District office in Winchester, Va., and at Afghanistan Engineer District-North in Kabul, joined the effort to develop the initial ideas into complete sets of construction documents, said Brandon Tobias,

The groups worked together to ensure the customer’s expectations met and that the facility was functional and could be used in Afghanistan, said Brandon Tobias, the architecture lead in Kabul.

Work continues in an effort to ensure fast construction.

“We took a look at the set through the eyes of a contractor to figure out what questions they would ask, what kinds of requests for information they would make during the construction process,” said Tobias, a resident of Kansas City, Mo., who’s on a temporary deployment from the Kansas City District office. “We’re in the process right now of trying to answer as many of those questions as possible ahead of time.”

Figiel is scheduled to return to the Corps of Engineer’ New England District office in Concord, Mass., in February 2012, about a year before the Presidential Information and Coordination Center is expected to be complete.

But he’s considering returning to Afghanistan for another tour before the building is finished. “I would like be here for the grand opening, yes,” he said.

• Date Taken: 05.31.2011
• Date Posted: 05.31.2011 07:07
• Story ID: 71354
• Location: KABUL, AF