Dubai, UAE
MAG Healthcare City
Year: 2016
Client: MAG Property Development
Area: Land Area 84 ha – GFA 75 ha
Status: Restricted Competition
Design: Studio Costa Architecture
CDO: A. Costa
Design Director: V. Alfonsi
Design Team: L. Rocchi, F. Petrucci
Visual Artist: M. Pace
Rendering: Atelier Crilo
Dubai, UAE
MAG Healthcare City
Year: 2016
Client: MAG Property Development
Area: Land Area 84 ha – GFA 75 ha
Status: Restricted Competition
Design: Studio Costa Architecture
CDO: A. Costa
Design Director: V. Alfonsi
Design Team: L. Rocchi, F. Petrucci
Visual Artist: M. Pace
Rendering: Atelier Crilo
Located in the Dubai Healthcare City expansion area, the new development will integrate the wellness and care offered in Dubai, expanding tourism and high-level hospitality services. The project area borders the Al Khail Road and can hence profit from close proximity to the Dubai city. At the same time, in order to protect its patrons from unwanted street/traffic noise the project will be shielded on this front toward the highway hub.
The area has a great nature and scenic value, thanks to the nearby Ras Al Khor Wildlife Sanctuary, a wetland reserve renowned for attracting migratory birds in large numbers, including flamingos. The presence of a waterfront is stressed upon: it adds value to the new expansion as a landscape element and as a main source for thermo- hygrometric comfort. The site has a total area of 83.954 square meters, in which Healthcare, Hospitality, Commercial and Residential land uses are admitted.
The design intent is to offer not just a place to stay and to spend time, but to create a feeling, a state of peace and bliss, a unique perfect sensation of an ‘isolated’ place outside the city hubbub, but right within the heart and soul of Dubai. The masterplan has been designed to simplify and encourage an healthy lifestyle: a new community in which wellness becomes a state of being. So it is important to include the best environmental strategies for sustainability and energy savings, to produce a system practicable, habitable and comfortable. For this reason the architecture of all the buildings is linked to the many green areas and open spaces: the curved geometry of the buildings render themselves to an outdoor green courtyard; water enters the plot becoming an essential part of the design. A design in which green and nature dominates, where the sound of water replaces the noise of chaotic urban life.