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The Sheraa Entrepreneur Centre Is a Place to Get Ideas off the Ground

08.14.19 | By
The Sheraa Entrepreneur Centre Is a Place to Get Ideas off the Ground

Dubai-based design studio Roar, led by Pallavi Dean, has designed the second entrepreneurship hub at American University of Sharjah in the UAE. The Sheraa hub is a center that offers startups and aspiring business-minded people support and advice as to how to develop their ideas, from the inception/incubator phase, through mentorship, and all the way to success. The design concept behind Sheraa, which means ‘sail’ in Arabic, was to create a space that helped walk entrepreneurs on their journey, with vignettes of space that serve the various steps of support.

The hub gives visitors flexibility throughout with multifunctional spaces that include casual areas, co-working spots, a learning studio, and an event arena all under one roof. There’s also a coding and prototyping lab, workshop rooms, and a space with amphitheater style seating for product and business launches.

Kvadrat Clouds create a three-dimensional sculpture that hangs above one area.

Certain training spaces are housed in enclosed rooms for various types of learning. They’re partly covered with glass to keep the open floor plan feeling bright and spacious.

Pops of bright colors are interspersed throughout, like in one of the rooms that does a brilliant job of making the heating/cooling system look cool.

Caroline Williamson is Editor-in-Chief of Design Milk. She has a BFA in photography from SCAD and can usually be found searching for vintage wares, doing New York Times crossword puzzles in pen, or reworking playlists on Spotify.