A healthier, happier city, by design at The Beach at JBR

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1 Page 1 of 6 Art, street furniture, inset pools and simple ornamental greenery such as olive trees are central features of the The Beach promenade. The one-kilometre strip runs along the beachfront at Jumeirah Beach Residence. Courtesy Cracknell Dubai A healthier, happier city, by design at The Beach at JBR Melanie Hunt October 22, 2015 Updated: October 22, :59 PM Related Bold, brash, brazen Beirut s flair for design Dubai goes east to Beijing Design Week How colour and custommade features transformed a Meadows home Finding a new angle with the creations of Aljoud Lootah Since its opening in 2014, The Beach a one-kilometre strip that extends along the beachfront between at Jumeirah Beach Residence has emerged as one of the city s favourite outdoor spaces, and an example of how good landscape design can influence urban culture and how people behave. Maarten Venter, a director at Cracknell, the international landscape architecture, planning and urban design practice that was responsible for landscaping the project, believes that the popularity of The Beach stems from the way it blends retail, leisure and dining options, all within sight of the Arabian Gulf. According to the South African landscape architect, who has been a resident of the UAE for a decade, the project has given the community what the community needed: a community space. It provides an open, accessible venue for people from a broad range of backgrounds and nationalities to congregate, interact and socialise, whether they are going to the beach, having a meal, seeing a movie or simply taking a stroll. The culture in the UAE has become more of an outdoor culture. People do spend a lot more time outdoors in these new spaces, so the environment has become a lot more physical. People no longer stay behind closed doors

2 Page 2 of 6 Topics: Architecture and design and windows they are more exposed and more interactive. I think the city is starting to respond to that, and you are seeing how these environments are shaping behaviours. There is a new blended UAE culture coming out of these areas. It s wonderful to see. The Dubai-based property developer Meraas Holding began briefing on The Beach in Meraas pushed the team to its limits to do something very different from what everybody else is doing, which is why I think the project outcome is so very successful, says Venter. The company wanted to create an environment that combined retail, commerce and recreation, and could cater for a broad range of separate functions and demographics, but was still a holistic, integrated space. In response, Cracknell envisaged four key themes, or zones. There is the cinema zone, or the recreational zone, then there is the retail plaza, the main plaza, and, lastly, an area designated for more high-end retail and dining brands. This is evident in the architecture and the materials used, which evolve from funky and sometimes gimmicky to more elevated materials, such as travertine and black granite. Traffic flow was one of the key considerations, so engineers were called upon to carry out extensive traffic impact studies. We had to put in a quota for parking, and expand upon what had previously been in place for 800 cars, and move it all underground and create capacity for a total of 1,200 vehicles, and integrate access to that across the project, Venter explains. Street furniture, benches and planters were designed for The Beach by Cracknell, to help create a smooth transition across the four zones. Part of the success of the project lies in the fact that is was a landscape-first design, Venter explains. The key to the landscape was that it was always the slate onto which everything was put down. In early drafts, the patterns were more busy and more broken up, and there had been more trees, but as we went along, the design elements were simplified and pared down, to facilitate clear, uninterrupted views of the sea, which was key. Three corridors run across the length of the project and dissect the zones the JBR Walk area, the central spine and the beach park, all of which had to be connected with the sea, both visually and physically. Add your comment View all comments Related

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