Cityscape Dubai 2008

It’s hard to imagine a larger and more decadent gathering of the real-estate vanguard, the keepers of the estate of the real, the high assembly of the mighty and elusive investor class, and the masses who feed from their trend-driven largess of which I count myself a member. All were in attendance as the trends were being re-defined here last week at Cityscape Dubai 2008, which I had the opportunity to attend through my new job with Yamasaki International. It was an amazing display of glitz and hype. Everything was greener than the next thing and amazingly, at the same time, taller and bigger and with more glass.







The next few images are from the MASDAR display. This is the carbon-free city on which I am working. The design is master-planned by Foster+Partners, London and Yamasaki International was awarded the Project 1 phase which is the second part to break ground. The first part is MIST on which F+P is the architect. It’s the MASDAR Institute of Science and Technology. Project 1 is largely infrastructural support for MIST and includes housing, and entrance park, and a mosque.








This is MIST






MASDAR Headquarters, designed by Adrian Smith.

Back to the rest of the exhibition:





Notice the clear plastic ball in which a woman was usually playing a harp. Unfortunately for me, she was taking a break when I came around with the camera. The connection to real estate is quite obvious enough.














The LATEST tallest building in the world. 1km high, and it looks like a missile. At some point it just gets absurd. But I guess we have to do it. It’s really important. It was interesting to see all of this happening the very week that the looming world depression was seriously hitting Europe. No one was paying much attention to that in Dubai. There was talk about it and the financial shows used it for material, but this is seemingly the Never-Never land of money here.


The model is just shy of the ceiling. Complete with laser show.






Sorry Burj Dubai bye…












Oh yes. A golf simulator less than 10 feet away from Ferrari race car. Someone knows their market.


ALDAR knows how to make a booth. They had the best Jazz playing inside the soft pink-blue glow room. There were these thin vertical bars that were connected to the ceiling track on hinges and free at the bottom – they would make this nice ambient clingaling as people brushed by them. And the interactive portfolio was pretty amazing too.






This one wins my sustainability award. Look at all the wind turbines in front of the all glass towers on the artificial peninsula. I bet they have PV too!












It was a tough call; there were a lot of contenders, but this ended up taking my “WORST DESIGN OF CITYSCAPE” award.