Reflections on Dubai

Dubai is an interesting one in the context of the journey, at the beginning of the journey I had no idea where Dubai was, it did feature on the BBC Television Series, Around the World in 80 Days with Michael Palin, but never registered as a place to visit, it was simply a port in the Persian Gulf on the wrong side of the Strait of Hormuz. 20 years later it is a different story, many colleagues are telling stories about working on the city growing out of the desert. Flights heading towards Asia from the UK, often involved making connecting flights in Dubai, and passing through the airport, and seeing so many nationalities, it really does feel like a global hub. The glossy promotional videos onboard Emirates flights give an impression of paradise, with clear blue skies, deep azure seas, deep orange sunsets over the dunes and the glittering towers in a New York on steroids scenario. 

By 2008, my company at the time Aedas, was immersed in the design of the Dubai Metro, the conic shells for the stations being developed in the London Studio, the depots at Jebel Ali and Rashidiya being handled by a team in Birmingham, both backed up by a huge team in Dubai, and teams in Hong Kong and Singapore, a truly collaborative process, although not without its challenges and as often in the harsh reality of project delivery was far from glamourous for those involved. The city as a place to relocate to, has represented something of a mirage in the sand, the financial crisis of 2008 put a stop to the expat 'gold rush', the city went bankrupt having to be bailed out by Abu Dhabi and many projects stopped. In 2010 the situation in the UK caused by the halt to public spending following a change of government, the need to consider relocating abroad became a very real one, but Dubai was already a closed shop, and in subsequent years visits have always been fleeting but reveal something of a completely different city to the one in the glossy images and videos. The city on the ground being one of highways, dust, haze and major works incomplete, or still in progress, towers standing empty and the gloss contained within huge shopping malls. 

In the past 5 years the city has been one that has been consistently of interest, from analysing the planning strategies that has resulted in the disjointed artificial environments, to the implementation of the Metro in an attempt to link all of these realities together, and the ongoing retro fitting of infrastructure to an existing situation. On planning projects telling clients that they are looking at developing projects equated to the 'size of Dubai' seems to be the only way that they understand the scale of what they are undertaking. As a subject, Dubai is a great learning experience for all of us, from uncontrolled growth and the notion that you can build anything you want based on money that does not actually exist, to the city learning itself, whether working in the city or following its growth from a distance it is surely one worth watching.

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