Awards we've won in 2011

So far in 2011, the Practice has won awards from the MIPIM AR Future Projects Award and the Holcim Award.


The MIPIM AR Future Projects Award


The MIPIM Architectural Review Future Projects Awards is an award program for unbuilt or incomplete projects spanning across eight categories. It is organised and awarded annually by the MIPIM in cooperation with the monthly international magazine Architectural Review. The awards have been running since 2002 and take place at MIPIM, the international property market in Cannes.


Musheireb - Heart of Doha masterplanning was awarded the MIPIM AR Future Projects awards as the overall winner.

Aerial View of the plaza

View from Abdullah Bin Thani Street, looking west into Barahat Al-Nouq

The Holcim Award


The Holcim Awards is an international competition that seeks projects and visions in sustainable construction – irrespective of scale. A total of USD 2 million dollars in prize money is awarded in each three-year cycle. Eligible for entry are projects in: buildings and civil engineering works; landscape, urban design and infrastructure; and materials, products and construction technologies. The Holcim Awards is conducted by the Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction based in Switzerland. Entries can only be made online.


mossessian & partners has won an open international competition to regenerate Place Lalla Yeddouna, a strategic location at the heart of Fez, Morocco, part of the MCA-Morocco Program, a $697.5m fund (“Morocco Compact”) to reduce poverty in Morocco through economic growth, financed by the USA’s Millennium Challenge Corporation.

Aerial view and Siteplan

Entrance view

View from the river

Heart of Doha, Doha, Qatar

Following mossessian & partners' success in the Heart of Doha competition, work has started on a mixed use development with the public realm of Ukaz Square at its centre.

Initially a competition winning bid, mossessian & partners received two awards at MIPIM this year for Al Barahat Square, a new civic space in Doha, Qatar and the centerpiece of the ‘Musheireb’ development.


This project aims to revive, regenerate and conserve the historical downtown of Qatar’s capital city. mossessian & partners’ nine mixed use buildings surround the main square at the heart of the Musheireb scheme, and include residential, commercial and retail buildings.


Al Barahat Square will act as an urban room for the development, an urbanised version of the majlis, fostering communication, interaction and integration between different residential communities.The floor of the square will be ‘carpeted’, clad in gold paving to recreate the richness and warmth of a traditional interior. The surrounding building facades draw heavily on the Qatari vernacular, helping define a new Qatari architectural legacy.


mossessian & partners have taken cues from indigenous building types and urbanism, which are accomplished at dealing with the challenging local climate, engaging with nature: sun, wind and mass. The streetscape is very much part of the scheme: sculpting the void - carving the space between buildings - is as important as designing the buildings themselves. The entire scheme is targeting LEED Gold certification, making it the world’s first sustainable downtown regeneration project.

Topping Out Ceremony - 5 Merchant Square, London

Shortlisted for ‘Special Tribute to the Country of Honour, UK’ AR Future Projects Award 2011
Shortlisted for BCO awards, 2011

On 27 May 2009, the last piece of concrete was poured on the top floor of the Carmine Building, 5 Merchant Square, Paddington. The ceremony was followed with short addresses given by Michel Mossessian and the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson. This marked an important milestone on the way to completion of the development.

View of the building from south east

5 Merchant Square is the central icon of the new development of six buildings that make up Merchant Square, Paddington Basin. Situated conveniently between London’s West End and Heathrow Airport, Paddington Basin is one of Europe’s largest regeneration projects. With floorplates averaging around 25,000 sq ft, the building is an elegant and distinctive response to the demand for quality office space in London’s West End. The scheme incorporates a public lobby, a mix of retail spaces and a health club. Its bold triangular volumes promote an open flow of pedestrians toward the basin while striking a fine balance between adjacent buildings and the public square to the East.

The building has an aluminium framed curtain wall system, but unlike most office blocks, it breaks up its monolithic façade with a lively and varied texture. In line with mossessian & partners’ strong environmental ethic, the cladding pre-emptively met the latest energy regulations by significantly reducing the area of glass used to cover its surface.

View of the lobby

The burgundy-coloured central atrium is covered in screen printed glass frit panels which form stunning patterns when viewed at a distance, without tinting incoming natural light. The external terraces are another innovative feature of its design, creating communal spaces where ‘corner offices’ would normally be. 

5 Merchant Square is an iconic addition to the Paddington Basin Site.

An article of Architects Journal