Dubai Business Bay Masterplan
Core idea
Extending CBD along Dubai Creek
Why it matters
Major office–residential urban district
Description
Business Bay is a large master-planned district in Dubai, launched around 2003 by the state-linked developer Dubai Holding, which extended Dubai Creek inland as a new canal and lined it with a dense cluster of office and residential towers. Conceived as an extension of the city's central business district adjacent to Downtown Dubai, the plan combined land reclamation, canal engineering and plot-by-plot tower development within a unified infrastructure framework.
Significance
Business Bay is a prominent example of Gulf state-capitalist megaproject urbanism, in which government-owned developers create entire financial districts as investment products. It illustrates both the speed and the vulnerabilities of that model, having stalled markedly in the 2008 financial crisis before resuming, and it features regularly in debates about speculative urbanism, labour conditions and the export of the Dubai development model.
What shaped it
- The skyscraper (1885)
- Neoliberalism (1970s–1990s)
- Floor Area Ratio (FAR/FSI) (20th c.)
- Splintering Urbanism (Graham & Marvin) (2001)
Sources
- https://www.thenationalnews.com/business/business-bay-stages-a-comeback-as-dubai-property-market
- https://www.dubaiholding.com/en/media-hub/press-releases/dubai-holding-unveils-marasi-business-b