Unique benches carved out from Bahrain’s limestone could draw visitors to oft-forgotten areas around the kingdom, while also preserving the island’s natural heritage.
Four seats and one table, cut out of limestone from Bahrain’s quarry in Askar, have been unveiled along the beach at the Bu Maher Fort in Muharraq, where Bahrain’s Unesco World Heritage site Pearling Path ends.
The benches by the fort
The ‘Jirri’ benches were created by the Civil Architecture team, comprising Ali Karimi, Hamed Bukhamseen, Maryam Ajoor and Fatima Nickahdar, and also contribute and coincide with a global renaissance of the love of and importance of benches inspired by a hit Netflix series After Life starring Ricky Gervais.
Mr Bukhamseen
“The benches use local limestone from the Askar quarry, cut in Nuwaidrat, then placed on site in Muharraq – minimising both cost of the rock and the travel time from source-to-destination as, from start-to-finish, the travel distance is only a handful of kilometres,” Mr Karimi explained to the GDN.
The bench is the result of a public Bahrain Authority for Culture and Antiquities’ (Baca) ‘Bench in Muharraq’ competition, held last year in collaboration with the Works, Municipalities Affairs and Urban Planning Ministry.
In addition to Civil Architecture’s ‘Jirri’ bench, Rawan Abdulrahman, Husam Yousif, Noora Fraidoon, Nader Al Abbasi, and the Arterior Interior Design’s bench concepts won the contest.
The six designs are being integrated into publicly-accessible areas of Muharraq, which was recognised as the Unesco Creative City of Design in 2019.
The Jirri concept was developed to preserve pieces of Bahrain’s natural limestone because stock is steadily declining.
“By sourcing the rock directly from Bahrain and utilising rocks that have already been quarried for other projects, the energy costs are limited to the cutting and transportation,” Mr Karimi added.
Mr Karimi
“The idea of using the bench is also in line with His Royal Highness Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, Crown Prince and Prime Minister’s goals from COP26, to reduce carbon emissions and search for sustainable ways of utilising local resources.
“The use of the limestone for a bench is not just a low-emission method of sourcing long-term public furniture, but also a way of showcasing the quality of the limestone from the quarry - which has otherwise been treated as a low quality rock suitable only as fill material or for armoured sea walls.
“With Bahrain’s sole quarry facing imminent exhaustion, the benches will eventually become one of the few visible archives of a depleted moment in the island’s geological past.”
The benches each weigh anywhere between half, and one-and-a-half tonnes and were made with three cuts on average.
Each bench is slightly angled so that water cannot stay on a flat surface. With limestone, acid rain is a major concern which could degrade the bench over time. However, the surfaces have been sealed and each bench is estimated to have a life of 100 years or more.
Another benefit of using the stone in Bahrain was the subsidisation of limestone, which reduced the cost of a tonne of stone to approximately four dinars. In fact, when originally conceived, the rocks were going to be much larger, with Mr Karimi hoping for a five tonne rock, but because of truck size considerations, this dream had to be scaled back.
With the installation of the new benches and table, Mr Karimi hopes that it will draw more families and visitors to the area.
“A chair or seating area is the quickest way of ‘activating’ an area because it gives people permission to use the space and frames the locale as a good place to hang out,” added Mr Karimi, who also helps to organise the Photos A La Chair initiative which highlights Bahraini-made benches and chairs in interesting environments during day-long open photo shoots.
naman@gulfweekly.com
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