Raneem Alsulaim

The blue balcony is a research-led initiative for urban history realisation, to unfold unrealised urban scenes
which are in danger of demolition and erasure. Hence, to promote sense of place which accumulates
sense of belonging.
To re-engage with the once-modern Khobar city in Saudi Arabia, which meanwhile lost its pivotal function
and meaning. Since urban memory plays an essential role in building individual’s identity and sense of
belonging to the place.

This initiative is a bottom-up strategy to prevent architectural destruction and to change the perception of
underused spaces through re-engagement with existing urban assets and bring them back to everyday life
of the city.

The intervention is a spatial experience that aims to change how people see and perceive the city, through
a certain strategy that triggers peoples’ CURIOSITY by questioning an unrealised terminology of the
cityscape. To draw them to that place, where the object surprisingly appear in the public realm invites to
further engagement with the place by targeting a deep personal question that stimulates “REFLECTIVE
NOSTALGIA” which is more critical and contemplative longing that draws people to think about the
ambiguity of change. The object is a mediator between people and how they perceive the city, to be
confronted with certain captured moments.

The initiative named after an unrealised terminology in the city “Blue Balcony” which is an unusual
architectural style in a monochromatic beige city, as the wooden shutters and the blue colour are famous
Mediterranean style but not a typical Saudi. This block of building with the rusted blue balconies is the last
block in the street that left without demolishing.

In the future, the object will become an icon for a new thing to explore in the everyday encounters of the
city.