Dubai, UAE
Located along the water’s edge of Dubai creek and adjacent to an arts centre, this park is the United Arab Emirates first open-air art park. We designed the park as an open public space with no fence to encourage social interaction through art. It welcomes Dubai’s diverse cultural community to gather around art and engage in a public dialogue. Given the sensitive desert climate of the gulf, it is designed mainly as a fluid hardscape with a selection of regional plants that require minimal irrigation. In addition to the given artwork we introduced facilities that further engage the public. These facilities include a 200-seat amphitheater, a children’s sand playground, a food stall area shaded by umbrellas as well as built in board game tables. The art works and facilities are arranged to follow a water ripple like, hidden circular geometry. That allows for an organic pedestrian flow, seamlessly connecting to the colonnade around the arts centre and the corniche along the creek. Our selection of the green and yellow pre-cast tiles correlates with our design selection of the pearlescent façade panels of the art centre.
