Dubai Sports City

Dubai Sports City will house massive stadiums, Ernie Els’ first golf course design in the Middle East and various sports academies like a Manchester United Soccer School facility. The mini-city will rise near Emirates Road on 50 million square feet of land within the Dubailand development. Like many developments in Dubai, Sports City will also mix commercial and residential buildings with the sport-oriented ones.

Tennis Review

Some friends visiting me this week found an old review of a tennis match I played in the glove-compartment of my car. It was pretty funny and slightly depressing, here it is...

1. Serve
Needs higher percentage of first and more power. WORK.

2. Ground strokes
High forehand problem. Bend knees on low ball. Needs to figure out slice, short ball. Lost lots of points on shorter ball. Has to get there quicker. Slower ball hurting him. SLICE AN ISSUE TO DEAL WITH.

3. Volleys
We need to work on that. He had an opportunity to make easy volley but did not. Lost three.

GENERAL COMMENTS
Love the way he battles. Limited in stroke production, but maximises what he has and fights hard. MORE CHALLENGED THAN PREVIOUS MATCH.

Culture Village

Dubai Culture Village, being built on the shores of the Creek near Garhoud will mix "old world pleasures and entertainment with a modern, sophisticated ambiance". The $50 billion dhs project spread over 40 million square feet will feature wide open spaces, traditional wind towers, cobble stone walkways, unique sculptures, waterways topped with bridges, creekside souks, restaurants and cafes, an amphitheatre for live performances and cultural festivals, an exhibition hall and museums, and a dockyard where traditional dhow building will be on display. It will offer an inspired mix of Arabic and old Dubai architecture. Murals, sculptures and pottery will adorn the facades of buildings and street corners.

Hydropolis Underwater Hotel

This new hotel, billed as the first underwater luxury hotel in the world, will submerge off the coast of Jumeirah and should be complete in one year or so. The hotel will feature a land station, connecting tunnel and underwater submarine resort with 220 suites. Joachim Hauser, the project architect, explains his inspiration for the project:

"We want to create the first ever faculty for marine architecture because I believe that the future lies in the sea, including the future of city planning. I am certain that one day a whole city will be built in the sea. Our aim is to lay the first mosaic by colonising the sea."

Click here for more details.

Bawadi

I was blown away by the 3-D rendering of the planned Bawadi Project. Set to rise in Dubailand right near Emirates Road, this zone is slated to be the largest concentration of hotels in the world. The development will occupy 139 million square feet in Dubailand and house a cluster of 31 hotels and space for up to 100 theaters producing live shows. While comparisons in design to the Vegas strip make sense here, seeing the model makes one realize the unbelievable scale of the project, in addition to how innovative the project architects have been.

World Central Airport

As its name suggests, the new Dubai World Central Airport will dwarf all other world airports in size and handling capability. 140 square kilometers of land and six parallel runways will accomodate up to 120 million passsengers and 12 tons or cargo per year. To give a sense of comparision, those handling statistics are equal to London's Heathrow and Chicago's O'Hare Airport combined. In addition to the airport, the zone will have extensive residential, business and tourism facilities, creating a mini-city of up to 750,000 inhabitants. The first runway is scheduled for completion by the end of 2008 and the entire development should be done around 2020.

Dubai Sun Tower

I thought it would be interesting to take a look at some of the new developments on the horizon for Dubai. As a result, I am taking the next few weeks to focus on the future architecture of Dubai. Some of the most interesting projects, if you can believe it, haven't even been completed yet!
Today's feature is the Sun Tower, designed by US-based architects Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. The building is planned for the Dubai Waterfront and makes energy efficiency a "top priority for the design" in order to deal with the huge amount of sunlight and heat the building will absorb.

Academics in Dubai

Gulf News reports today on the increasing amount of academic research focused on the "Dubai model." Most of the projects referenced appear to deal with the question of Dubai's sustainability in the context of traditional models of development. Click here for the article.

Incredible !ndia

I have been in India for a few days with my sister, who continues her trip around the world. There is such a strong presence of Indians in Dubai that it seems important to come here to better understand this important part of the Dubai population.
Words can't really describe India. The world's largest democracy, home to over 1 billion inhabitants and about to cross the threshold of a $1 trillion annual GDP, India remains poor and from what we have seen, quite undeveloped. More than anywhere I have visited, India defies expectations about human behavior, living habits, and even animals. People often speak about how scary driving can be in developing countries. In India, drivers rely on the "brake, horn and voice" to negotiate almost everything. Traffic never flows in the same direction; cars frequently use the side or middle lanes of oncoming traffic to arrive at their desired destination.
Animals occupy a unrivaled position of authority on the roads and in households. Cows can be compared to domesticated dogs, lounging in front yards the way a golden retriever might do in suburban America. Animals also constitute about 50% of street traffic, with cows and camels pulling wagons and donkeys resting on median strips. While the incessant beeping from the more modern vehicular elements might aim to overwhelm these more primitive ones, their lack of response and clear comfort on busy roads confirms that animals continue to rule.
Despite the feeling of tension between the old and new, India is clearly on the rise. TV and media in general mirror most aspects of the Western ones: an obsession with celebrity (Liz Hurley's wedding is front page news), engagement with local and international politics, non-stop cricket updates and the constant ticker symbols from the Indian stock exchange. Modern and growing, India seems just too big for growth to occur uniformly or according to any logic that one could easily summarize. And sadly, the poverty here is so extreme and widespread, it feels almost forever removed from the economic growth taking place in other parts of society.
Really, it's Incredible !ndia!!

Wild Wadi

Today was the long awaited meeting of the Pearl of Dubai with Wild Wadi, a huge waterpark in Dubai. My sister's visit gave me the perfect excuse to indulge in the slides and rapids of this Dubai attraction. Highly recommended to anyone who hasn't been yet.