Links Repository (Dubai Marina)

Text of off-site links pasted here for retrieval when 3rd party pages go offline.

1. Charting Dubai's Future Density and Mixed-Use Characterize a New Model of Development in the UAE
   
   29 August 2004
   
   Dubai is a remarkable place. It's a vibrant new city where elegant young expats from all over the world are striving to make their first "tax-free" million. It truly feels like a place where anything can happen. In many ways it is the "city of the moment," reflecting both the best of modern technological advances and the worst of rampant consumerism.
   
   Over the past decade, Dubai has emerged as the regional commercial, entertainment and resort hub. Forty years ago, the city was a small port on the Arabian Gulf. It had the advantage of a natural harbour formed by a natural estuary and the even greater benefit of a native people who over centuries developed an affinity and talent for trade.
   
   The form and the growth of the city have followed a variation of the Los Angeles model. New centres of development leapfrog across the desert outside of the older cores of Diera and Bur Dubai, linked by freeways and ring roads. This leaves large open spaces in between to be filled in with a lower-intensity, car-dependent form of urban sprawl. There is no real urban history in Dubai, so the developers in the city have invented a variety of urban conditions.
   
   Dubai Marina, a mixed-use development on approximately 578 hectares, is planned as one of the major new centres within the city. Designed with the intent to create a new focus for high-density development, it was conceived as a "city within the city" that would help shift the perceived centre of Dubai further west along the shore of the Gulf.
   
   As work began on the master plan, the true design challenge came from the lack of context within which to build. As a place with few historical references and no traditional commercial real estate market, on a site simply bounded by a freeway on one side and a beachfront on the other, HOK and Emaar Properties had an open opportunity to define the characteristics of the kind of community we wanted to create. In the most generic sense, as planners, we needed to define the essence of what makes a great urban place and translate it into the physical context at hand.
   
   Creating a sense of place
   The Dubai Marina project was blessed with a developer who had a strong initial vision for the overall development. This "big idea" about the form, shape and function of a new urban area, is one of the essential factors for successful urban design. The vision for Dubai Marina brings the waters of the Gulf into the site, creating a new waterfront community. It will be a dense, urban place with a residential focus capable of accommodating a large international population.
   
   Focus on the quality of the public realm
   Another key factor in the design of Dubai Marina was a large central waterway, excavated from the desert, running the length of the 3-kilometre site. To protect this resource as well as to create a place for recreation, the design established a continuous minimum 15-metre-wide strip of land around its perimeter. This is a remarkable and generous achievement in a private development project. More than 12% of the total land area on the site has been given over to this central public space. Although much of this area is occupied by the marina water surface, it also includes almost eight kilometres of landscaped public walkways creating a recreational zone along the waterfront with views into the various water basins and a relationship to the water. In a fairly dense urban setting, where fresh water is scarce and rain is insufficient to support open landscapes, the value of the marina is in the finished visual open space it provides in the center of the development. Like Central Park in New York, or the Grand Canal in Venice, the marina public space opens up the development to light and long views.
   
   In addition to the marina waterway and promenade, the other important components of the public realm are the streets, avenues and parks that create the framework for the development. All of the neighbourhood streets are designed with generous, landscaped pedestrian walkways leading to the parks and the marina. Residential building entrances are oriented to these neighbourhood streets to encourage active pedestrian circulation and to create functional and visual linkages between buildings and the marina even if the particular building does not front directly on the waterway.
   
   From an urban design perspective, the important factor is that the public realm is conceived and designed as a network of linked open spaces, and the private development parcels and guidelines controlling private development are all shaped to address and enhance the adjacent public realm.
   
   Design of the pedestrian environment
   The convenience of being able to walk to perform daily errands, to meet friends and to access community resources is one of the real pleasures of urban life. The activity and social interchange that this kind of access provides is also one of the qualities that make cities interesting places to live.
   
   Dubai Marina is designed so that residents can arrive home, park their car and walk to take advantage of all the resources in the community. Retail shops and community services will be built into grade-level building podiums in neighbourhood centres. Larger shopping facilities with restaurants and cafes are planned at key locations along the promenade around the perimeter of the marina and along major boulevards. All residential development is within a five-minute walk of the marina promenade.
   
   Mix of uses
   Linked to the objective of creating a pedestrian-friendly urban community is the need to provide a mix of grade-related, street-front land uses that meet the needs of neighbourhood residents and that are convenient and accessible. Retail and community service uses need to be concentrated into well-defined centers of activity, and these centers need to be conveniently distributed throughout the community.
   
   The development frontage along the marina promenade is planned to provide a real mix of conditions to create interest and variety along 8 kilometers. Some lengthy segments of the promenade will be quite passive in character, providing a landscaped walkway in front of low-rise residential development lining the waterfront. The promenade also links the series of pocket parks at the end of cul-de-sac streets that may have cafes or convenience shops in adjacent residential buildings. In other waterfront developments, similar to the Phase 1 project, much more active commercial centers are planned that will generate and encourage pedestrian traffic and activity along the promenade.
   
   Variety and future flexibility
   One of the problems with large-scale master planning is the tendency to become too prescriptive in creating urban design guidelines that apply to the entire planning area. The result is a homogeneity that can be repetitive and tiresome. The neighbourhoods created in Dubai Marina are designed to allow for creation of a distinct identity and character responding to their own unique location within the overall community.
   
   Dubai Marina has the advantage that it will be built out over a long period of time. This in itself creates variety. Over time, market conditions will change, as will community needs and priorities. The master plan creates a framework that can respond to change and allows for additional phases of detailed planning and urban design as new segments of land are opened up for development.
   
   The fine grain of land subdivision will also be an issue addressed in subsequent planning stages, and may be one of the key factors in generating diversity and variety in the identity of different neighbourhoods. The developable land immediately adjacent to the marina is currently parceled in very large plots. These can either be developed as large multiple structure developments, as represented by the Phase 1 development, or they could be subdivided into smaller development plots. There is also the potential of opening new neighbourhood roads through some of these large plots to create smaller development parcels with internal road frontage.
   
   A new benchmark for development
   In the five years since the master planning process began, the marina (the major formative element of the development) has been excavated and opened to the sea. The Phase 1 development is complete and in many respects has set a new standard for development in Dubai. It was the first residential development in Dubai offering condominium ownership to expatriates, and the rapid sale of its approximately 1,100 units has created a new real estate market in the Emirate. The sale of land by Emaar Properties and development of plots by other developers around the shore of the Marina is proceeding rapidly, with more than 40 major building projects either in design or under construction.
   
   In addition to launching a new source of development revenue, Dubai Marina promotes a sense of community that celebrates the region's natural and cultural resources and distinguishes it among building projects. As Dubai continues to prosper, the project's compelling public spaces and thoughtful urban design provide both a context and a catalyst to chart the course of the city's exciting future.
   
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2. Marconi to Deliver Communications of the Future for World's First Intelligent City at Dubai Marina
   
   30 October 2000
   
   Marconi has been chosen to create and supply the communications of the future for the world's first truly intelligent city: an entirely new business, government centre and residential community of 80,000 to 100,000 people called Dubai Marina, being built at a cost of more than US$4 billion in the United Arab Emirate of Dubai.
   
   UAE-based developer EMAAR has appointed Marconi as technology partner in a deal expected to be worth more than US$550 million to the company over the next ten years. Its brief is to design, build and operate a totally new communications network for Dubai Marina, Emirates Hills and Emirates Lakes, using the most advanced technologies and applications available – including regular upgrades so that it remains at the cutting edge of global communications.
   
   Neil Sutcliffe, CEO of Marconi's Services Division, said: "EMAAR chose Marconi because we were the only company able to present a forward-looking vision of communications to help realise its dreams for the city of the future - and back it up with the resources to deliver a fully working, fully integrated system."
   
   "Dubai Marina is the most exciting development project in the world: the opportunity to create the first truly intelligent city. It will be a living demonstration of all that is best in every aspect of communications for business, government and the home."
   
   "Our role in building an entirely new city will enable us to show the full potential of convergence in communications technology for the first time on such a large scale and show how Marconi is transforming the world we live in. The facilities we provide for the people who live and work in Dubai Marina will be a template for developments across the world."
   
   Dubai Marina is being built minutes away from Dubai City and will comprise a three kilometre beach, 100 low, medium and high rise office and apartment towers, landscaped parks, schools, shopping centres, luxury hotels, medical facilities and a full range of recreation and entertainment facilities, together with 4000 new upmarket homes in Emirates Hills and Emirates Lakes. The first buildings will be completed in January 2001, with the first phase of tower blocks completed in early 2002. The Dubai government plans to move to new offices, which will be built next to the development.
   
   The first phase of Marconi's involvement is to create a fully working simulation of the communications facilities which will be available - including everything from video conferencing to smart household appliances. They will be demonstrated to businesses and residents interested in moving to the city in a sales pavilion, opening in October, that will contain three replicated apartments.
   
   The communications infrastructure will integrate every aspect of living and working in Dubai Marina: business, home, government administration, education, health, entertainment and leisure.
   
   Every part of the city will be connected to a high-bandwidth network that will provide access to local services via a specially-created intranet, together with high-speed connection to global services via the internet and international telephone networks.
   
   All residents will have access to video-on-demand, video telephony, video camera security and access control. They will also be able to use the network to control their living environments and appliances - for example, turning on cookers or air conditioning equipment from their offices before they set off for home.
   
   Students will be able to access educational resources whether they are at home, school or college. Everybody will have access to regular and emergency healthcare resources, from anywhere in the city.
   
   Businesses will enjoy real-time video telephony and conferencing, and fast access to commercial and government databases online.
   
   "Dubai Marina will be the world's first fully online city, with every worker and resident able to use e-business, e-healthcare, e-leisure, e-education, e-entertainment and e-government facilities at the click of a mouse or touch of a screen," Mr Sutcliffe said.
   
   "Until now, it has been difficult for most communities to turn the concept into reality, because of the limitations of heritage technologies such as low bandwidth networks and ageing access equipment. The idea of a large online community has remained a dream."
   
   "At Dubai Marina we have the unique opportunity to create a communications environment which is totally state-of-the-art and all-embracing."
   
   "Just as exciting is the prospect of implementing new technologies and applications as soon as they become available in the future. Communications for the people in Dubai Marina will not be frozen in time - they will continue to evolve at the very leading edge of what is possible."
   
   Marconi plc is a global communications and IT company with around 49,000 employees world-wide and sales in over 100 countries. It supplies advanced communications solutions and the key technologies and services for the internet. Marconi plc is listed on the London Stock Exchange and NASDAQ under the symbol MONI.
   
   Notes to Editors:
   
   EMAAR is one of the largest property development companies in the UAE. It is 33% owned by the Government of Dubai and 67% owned by investors, via a listing on the Dubai Financial Market.
   
   Known as the Venice of the Gulf, Dubai is the chief port and commercial centre of the United Arab Emirates. It has a population of nearly 700,000.
   
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