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RMJM Designing Massive Mixed-Use Project in Dubai

Madinat Al Soor is part of the 1.4 billion square foot Waterfront City by Rem Koolhaas's Office of Metropolitan Architecture.

Nicholas Tamarin -- Interior Design, 10/24/2008 12:00:00 AM

Image courtesy of Office for Metropolitan Architecture.

If there’s any doubt that Dubai has become our generation’s go-to city for international architecture firms, yet another Interior Design Giant has a massive project on the boards to help put the argument to rest. Now joining the migration to the United Arab Emirates is Princeton, New Jersey-based RMJM, which has been selected by developer Nakheel to design the 11 million-square-foot Madinat Al Soor mixed-use development.

Madinat Al Soor, which is expected to house 22,000 new residents, will be located within the 1.4 billion-square-foot Waterfront City, a development by Rem Koolhaas's Office of Metropolitan Architecture that will be twice the size of Hong Kong island, with an estimated population of 1.5 million.

Literally translated as "City of the Wall," Madinat Al Soor will be located at the harbor entrance to Waterfront City and include residences, markets and hotels, as well as civic and cultural facilities. The complex is surrounded by water on three sides, with the fourth bordered by an inhabited wall from which it derives its name. In contrast to much of the modern-leaning design currently underway in Dubai, Madinat Al Soor is intended to be Arabic-influenced, incorporating low-rise buildings, courtyards, narrow streets and canal systems.

According to Peter Schubert, RMJM’s New York-based design director, "Our intention is to breathe life into the client's vision for a richly textured, human-scale city by uniting Arabic architectural forms and planning strategies with a modern design sensibility in accordance with Dubai's position as a world-class city of innovative architecture."