University of Baghdad
Baghdad, Iraq

Commissioned by the Royal Government of Iraq in the late 1950's, Walter Gropius commenced his master plan in the 1960's for a new University Campus to host the Colleges of Engineering, Sciences and Liberal Arts for a total of 6,800 students.

In 1982, Dr. Ashkouri, as part of the Architects Collaborative Team in Cambridge, MA, led the effort to design a master plan for the expansion of the university campus to accommodate 20,000 students with a full range of support facilities, staff and university administration, serving a total campus population of 28,000.

The new campus includes the additions of university-size classrooms; seminar rooms; language, science and engineering laboratories; faculty offices; administrative offices; new library addition housing 1,000,000 volumes; new auditorium; three new deaneries; new College of Fine Arts; additional dormitories and dining halls for male and female students; new elementary and middle/high school; and shopping center with new faculty housing.

Through extensive use of the latest technology, the campus is designed to enhance the educational process and to encourage cross-college and interdepartmental interaction among students and faculty in both academic and residential areas. The campus design is based on a modular academic bay structure that is easily adaptable to fit a science lab or engineering lab as well as a regular classroom or seminar room.

Dr. Ashkouri developed a full academic space program with Mr. Robert Owen for the entire University of Baghdad Campus that was implemented in this design. The challenge was to create a balance between physical academic buildings, open space, parking and other site elements that make a fully and indigenously landscaped environment. Campus utilities were also redesigned to meet the new load of 28,000 people Campus and to accommodate project loads for the next 30 years. The total expansion cost was estimated to be $420 million in 1983.