Students redesign a city across the world

Graduate studios in the School of Design sometimes travel across the world to work on real-life, client-based projects. Past groups have worked on projects in the Netherlands, Venezuela and India.

Students in Michael Larice's graduate Urban Design Studio, called The Public Realm, returned from a trip to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates to create a plan to redesign the city's Central Business District.

Larice, a consultant for the Urban Planning Council of Abu Dhabi last year, suggested improving the business district's public areas, and the UPC enlisted the class to redesign the area.

Currently, the business district comprises mostly buildings and parking lots. The class' design includes "green connections" - green spaces connecting buildings - and streetscaping to make the area more pedestrian friendly, explained Zohra Mutabanna, a student in the group. Suggested housing to suit the region will also be included in the class' report of the design.

This month's trip allowed the students to scope out the city for the best possible designs.

"We mainly did site analysis and documentation of existing city conditions," said Mutabanna, who went on a similar trip to the Netherlands last semester.

"Abu Dhabi is a huge city that kind of grew up as a desert settlement which hit oil around 40 years ago," said Benjamin Bryant, another student in the group. "It is a young and upcoming city which reminds you how old Philadelphia is."

James Young, another student, said he felt that though Abu Dhabi is the capital of UAE. and "has the oil, it has yet to have a defining identity, especially in comparison to Dubai."

Their research also required them to visit one place at different times of the day to see how different people use it.

Group member Kristin Michael said she found a mosque by day that turned into a playground for children at night.

The students were particularly struck by the way religion regulates life in the city - such as through the call to prayer five times a day and the observance of Friday as a holy day.

Another student, Jack Conviser, was impressed by the "entrepreneurial spirit" of small-business owners in the city.

The group also visited two other emirates, Dubai and Al Ain on the trip.

"We found Al Ain more traditional in terms of scale - a nice, comfy town which has not yet seen large-scale development," said Bryant. "Dubai, in comparison, has been built as much as possible on as large a scale as possible."

They visited the palace of the ruler of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Khalifa, which had a lot of intricate gold laid work.

"It was very impressive, very tastefully done, especially when compared to Dubai," Michael said.

Later this semester Design students will travel to Casablanca, Morocco, and the Czech Republic.

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