A small commercial building in Doha whose tired facade was costing it tenants. The owner needed a thermal and visual upgrade — without closing the businesses inside for a full demolition.
A small commercial building in Doha whose tired facade was costing it tenants. The owner needed a thermal and visual upgrade — without closing the businesses inside for a full demolition.
Each chapter records a decision the next project team can evaluate: intent, performance, production and site delivery.
The existing substrate could not take a heavy rebuild, so we specified a back-ventilated aluminium rainscreen retrofit mounted onto the current structure. No full demolition, no new primary frame — the old envelope keeps working behind the new skin while the cavity ventilation manages heat and moisture.
The building stayed operational throughout. The rainscreen was detailed bay-by-bay so the contractor could work around trading hours, with each panel pre-fabricated and pre-finished off site to keep noise, dust and site activity to a minimum.
Rooflight assemblies were upgraded in the same programme, detailed for desert-climate condensation management — the highveld rule inverts in the Gulf: it is the air-conditioned interior against 45 °C exterior humidity that puts condensation on the wrong side of the glass. Argon-filled units on warm-edge spacers keep the dew point where it belongs.
A project-specific salt-spray resistant finishing specification covers every exposed fixing and trim, and the documentation package was prepared for the client's local third-party compliance review. Delivery was pure T1 — the local crew installed to our drawings under remote engineering support.
Design & Supply
Middle East context: solar exposure, dust, drainage, finish durability and local review responsibilities are coordinated project by project.
Back-ventilated rainscreen installed onto existing structure — no demolition, trading continued
Rooflights re-detailed for Gulf condensation: argon fill and warm-edge spacers as standard
Salt-spray resistant finish specification applied to all exposed fixings and trims
Documentation package lodged for local third-party compliance review
This is a clearly labelled reference study using representative imagery. It explains a facade approach and is not presented as commissioned Starveil work.
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