Mohammed Bin Rashid Gardens

About Mohammed Bin Rashid Gardens

The Mohammed Bin Rashid Gardens represent the most innovative approach to urban form to be found anywhere in the Middle East. Celebrating the intricate geometry of Arabian art and science its 56 million square feet of verdant parks and gardens divide an 880 million square foot city into a network of sustainable neighbourhoods, each containing the molecule of daily life.

Scaled around walk-able distances that provide easy access to food, healthcare and education, this enlightened model of urban planning will help reverse the Gulf’s existing commuter culture that has eroded both communities and the environment.

The Mohammed Bin Rashid Gardens offer a culturally resonant alternative to the sterile Western-style street grids that currently dominate the Middle East. They replace those rigid, rectilinear lines with the sweeping arcs and circles of the planispheric astrolabe; an instrument perfected by Islamic scholars, craftsmen and astronomers. Fusing the spheres of art and astronomy into an intricate object of enduring beauty, the astrolabe represents one of the greatest leaps of human imagination.

It maps the movements of celestial bodies through the vastness of space, etching them onto a brass plate that can be held in the palm of the hand. Dubai is likewise a product of great imagination: A royal vision for a modern city that has risen from an ancient land. To base a new city plan upon an object embodying 2000 years of human invention is to build upon the bedrock of civilisation itself.

With its integrated collection of artful civic forms and iconic infrastructure the masterplan for the Mohammed Bin Rashid Gardens offers a sustainable model for the future. Raised in such enlightened surroundings Dubai’s next generation will be well equipped to participate in the market place of ideas that is driving our 21st century world.