The project reinstates Qasr Al Hosn, Abu Dhabi’s oldest and most significant heritage structure originally built c.1760, as the cultural heart of the city. The 140.000 sq m cultural park-scape combines modernity alongside the Emirate’s maritime and desert heritage in a coherent narrative that communicates between the site’s two contrasting buildings, the Fort and the Cultural Foundation, a 1980s Grade ‘A’ listed cultural centre of Bauhaus origins.
This duality is emphasized by dividing the site diagonally into two contrasting landscapes. A soft, open desert landscape around the fort and a programmed area with intensified planting around the Cultural Foundation relating to the modern city grid. The two landscapes are connected by a public space emerging from formations of cracks and irregular geometric shapes, which transform from horizontal planes into slanting surfaces that gradually grow into buildings.
All elements subtly merge with the park to appear as one coherent landscape, emphasizing the Fort and the Cultural Foundation as main visual anchors. Together, they create a unifying and scalable design language rooted in an architectural interpretation of Abu Dhabi Island’s coastal desert landscape and its cultural significance.
The open hardscape areas are combined with pocket spaces containing exclusively indigenous and culturally significant plants, forming a series of small oases scattered across the site with Ghaf trees, date palms and traditional kitchen and medicinal gardens. Together, they create a locally anchored park aesthetic of indigenous, hardy, sun tolerant plants that require minimal irrigation, which is provided by collecting usable wastewater from the neighbourhood.
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Last year more than 40 countries took part in the WAN Awards with strong showings from Europe, the Americas and Asia-Pacific. And we saw some truly outstanding projects, take a look at the winners from last year here.