Dubai: The Latest Architecture and News

One of the most significant cultural events in the Middle East, Dubai Design Week represents a platform that offers individuals and companies the opportunity to showcase their design experience and to open conversations about the most pressing issues of our times. Developed in a strategic partnership with Dubai Design District (d3), the event presents a series of immersive, large-scale installations that highlight the festival’s theme: Design with Impact.

This year’s program is focused on designing a sustainable future. To promote this, Dubai Design Week has invited international and regional architects and designers to create installations that demonstrate creative design thinking, to introduce innovative materials, and spark conversations about the ways in which design can have a positive impact on the environment.

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Stefano Boeri Architetti presented a new design for the Vertical Forest towers during COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt. The prototype would be in Dubai, the most populous city in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and the next host of COP28 in 2023. The ambitious project would represent the first Vertical Forest prototype for the MENA (Middle East and North Africa), and it is the latest in an extended list of greenery-covered buildings by Boeri Architetti, including the Bosco Verticale in Milan, the Easyhome Huanggang in China, and a prototype of the First Dutch Vertical Forest.

A new urban tech district is planned for the Creekside of Al Jaddaf area in Dubai. Developed by URB, the district aims to generate over four thousand jobs in urban technologies, education, and training, while also welcoming entrepreneurs to encourage a collaborative tech ecosystem. The district will provide facilities for training, research, conferences, business incubations, shared-desk spaces, and dedicated offices. It will also be home to an urban tech institute, which hopes to drive innovation by investing in applied research and by enabling public-private partnerships.

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Videos

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Rem Koolhaas, co-founder of Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), receiver of the Pritzker Prize Award in 2000, and leading urban theorist, was one of the first to question the high-rise phenomenon and its influence on city transformation. Particularly intrigued by the Gulf region and the urban ambitions of this area, in 2009, during the 9th edition of the Sharjah Biennial, he delivered a lecture on the potential of re-inventing urbanization in the Emirates.

On the occasion of the golden jubilee of UAE, marking 50 years since the Emirates were founded in 1971, 50U, published by Archis explores the different developments in the Gulf, this region that “witnessed the transformation of a partly nomadic, partly town-based community into a globally active metropolitan society”. After Al Manakh, in 2007, followed in 2010 by Al Manakh Cont’d, 50U tells the story of the UAE through 50 portraits of people, plants, and places. The book also shares an excerpt of Koolhaas’ 2009 talk that reflects on contemporary conditions, focusing specifically on his reading of Dubai, his architectural involvement as well as his future urban predictions.

Ahead of the official opening of the Expo City Dubai site on October 1st, the organizers have announced that visitors will have the chance to discover two of the Expo's thematic pavilions: Alif and Terra starting September 1st, marking its inauguration. The pre-launch will also feature access to Garden in the Sky, a 360-degrees platform that offers panoramic views of the site.

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Dubai-based architecture firm ZNera Space has proposed a new type of contemporary symbol for the city: a green and natural landmark that serves as a "continuous metropolis" around Burj Khalifa. Dubbed "Downtown Circle", the project features installing a giant ring-like structure of 550 meters in length around the world’s tallest free-standing structure. The structure will "investigate how at this critical time in the country’s development, architects, and urban planners can move away from previous urban models of isolated skyscrapers, towards a more humane typology that seeks to emulate nature and create diverse public spaces".

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Moving forward with his "ultra-marathon of photoshoots", architectural photographer Marc Goodwin is putting together an Atlas of Architectural Atmospheres by Arcmospheres, a project that seeks to document diverse architecture and design studios from around the world. Since 2016, the architectural photographer has been traveling "far and wide to capture the atmospheres of architecture studios in order to produce an online and print resource for the architecture community", and after a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic, Goodwin resumed his project with an exploration of Berlin's architecture offices, capturing the work environment of renowned firms such as Hesse, LAVA, JWA, and FAR frohn&rojas, to name a few.

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