Creek Play is a project to enhance the public realm of Dubai Creek Harbour, for its upcoming opening. The latest ambitious project from Emaar Properties is pedestrian friendly, with humanly scaled streets, spaces for leisure and fun, active public spaces, walkable and discoverable. A new hotspot in the city of Dubai.
Due to the upcoming release of this world class development, 100 Architects was commissioned to design an outdoor project to enhance the public realm experience of residents and visitors from the Creek Island. A stimulating permanent intervention for entertainment along 350 meters of waterfront promenade at the Creek Island’s Marina. It happens to be one of the longest playscape arrangements in the world in which all functions are arranged in a linear way.
Conceptually conceived as a playful village, the proposal is manifested as an eye-catching playscape for the joy of kids and adults alike, adding a pinch of color and playfulness along the meandering promenade.
The area to intervene was so long that we decided to split it in 7 focal nodes of activity evenly spread along its entire length. These 7 different stations create a journey of fun, a circuit of eventful surprises along the promenade, offering an alternative playful experience to the mesmerizing creek and Dubai skyline views.
The 7 nodes have a symbolic meaning related to the federation of the 7 emirates as the United Arab Emirates. Hence while each node is rendered as a little village by itself and can be understood as an independent entity, all of them are part of a common project, linked to each other.
The 7 focal nodes of activity are connected to each other through a series of colorful walls and floor graphics inspired by Dubai’s vernacular arabesque shapes, as the ones used in traditional doors, windows and other elements of vernacular architecture. Besides enhancing the vernacular touch of the installation, these sections in between nodes support the immersive experience all along the waterfront promenade, strengthening the connection between nodes and encouraging the transit from one node to another.
Each node is composed of a conglomeration of capsules forming a stimulating village of fun, in which each capsule offers a different instant function, such as sitting, swinging, sliding, climbing, laying down, playing, hanging, etc…, all of them encouraging the occurrence of social interactions.
While some of the capsules are mostly focused on kids, some other are thought to be also used by adults. This familiar approach of combining spaces for kids and adults has result in a perfect public space for visitors and residents of all ages.
