McLaren International’s Al Karamah School project has been shortlisted to the final five for International Project of the Year Award by Construction News. Serving a fundamental need within the United Arab Emirates, the school is the first in the region that is dedicated to serving local pupils with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
Al Karamah school is a special project, as it focuses on the needs of a very specific cohort of pupils and enhances the educational landscape and social care system within Abu Dhabi. The design is carefully crafted around the way in which young people with autism engage with their environment. McLaren worked collaboratively with the client, architect and other consultants to find ways to reduce the cost whilst keeping design intent where possible.
The customer had a clear vision and aspiration of what and how it wished to achieve with its landmark project that would begin to satisfy a significant need for the country. The team were driven forward by the ambition and expedient decision-making of the client to design and deliver this major refurbishment in a challenging 4.5 months.
The award nomination is testament to the work of the McLaren international team to design and build such a complex project in a collaborative manner to deliver the project on time and within budget. The project recently received the Big Project Middle East ‘design and build project of the year’.
