SSH Design

About SSH

SSH is one of the leading architecture and engineering consultancies in the Middle East and Africa. Established in 1961, the firm now employs more than 1,000 people across offices in Bahrain, Egypt, Kuwait, Morocco, Oman, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. More than six decades of continuous regional practice give it a depth of local knowledge that international firms entering the market cannot easily replicate.

Core Services

Master Planning

Large-scale planning for new districts, business parks, mixed-use communities and city extensions, covering land use, movement, infrastructure capacity and phasing across long delivery programmes.

Building Design

Full architectural and engineering design for commercial, residential, hospitality, healthcare, education, retail and civic buildings, from concept through tender documentation.

Infrastructure

Roads, drainage, utilities, marine works and public realm engineering - the systems that make new developments viable before any building rises above ground.

Construction Supervision

Site supervision and contract administration, a service in high demand across the region where clients often require an independent consultant to protect quality, cost and programme through construction.

Regional Footprint

Operating across seven countries in the MEA region allows SSH to move expertise between markets while maintaining local licensing, code knowledge and client relationships in each. The firm describes itself as small enough to remain a genuinely close partner - intimate, agile and quick to respond to changing conditions - yet large enough to be trusted with complex, high-value programmes.

Representative Projects

• Capria East and Capria West at Ghaf Woods in Dubai, UAE
• Madinat Al Irfan Business Park in Oman
• Expo Valley Views in the UAE
• Radisson RED Hotel on Marjan Island, Ras Al Khaimah, UAE

Approach and Values

SSH grounds its work in professional integrity and long-term relationships - with clients, industry partners, employees and investors alike. The emphasis on returns on investment is deliberate: in fast-moving Gulf markets, design quality is judged alongside commercial performance, and the firm positions its work as delivering both.

Sectors Served

Typical commissions span mixed-use and residential communities, hospitality and resorts, commercial offices and business parks, healthcare and education facilities, retail and leisure destinations, and government and public infrastructure. That range reflects the pace of development across the Gulf, where entire districts are planned, engineered and supervised within a single decade.

Market Position

SSH competes with both international consultancies and regional players, differentiating through its combination of long-established local presence, multidisciplinary in-house capability and construction supervision expertise. For clients in Kuwait, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Oman, that means one consultant can carry a project from master plan through to site handover.

Why AEC Teams Should Know SSH

For teams working on or entering Middle East markets, SSH is a valuable reference point for how master planning, building design, infrastructure engineering and supervision are combined under regional procurement models across the built environment.

Working in Gulf Markets

Projects in the region carry conditions that shape design from the outset: extreme summer temperatures, high solar gain, saline groundwater, sand and dust loading on facades and equipment, and construction programmes that are frequently compressed around fixed opening dates. Consultants working here must design for cooling loads and durability in ways that differ substantially from temperate-climate practice, and must be fluent in local authority approvals and civil defence requirements.

Client Base

SSH works with government ministries, sovereign developers, private real estate groups, hospitality operators and institutional clients. Many of these relationships span decades and multiple projects, which is a reasonable proxy for delivery performance in a market where reputation travels quickly.