What is it about?
While the urban waterfront is crucial to shaping the city image, it also contributes to the quality of life of the city’s inhabitants and visitors. The Waterfront of Abu Dhabi city, the capital of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), has witnessed influential changes in the last 20 years. This research aims at discussing the relationship between urban form and social sustainability in a very recent urban regeneration of a waterfront project in Abu Dhabi city, the Zayed Port’s waterfront project. The attainment of the social sustainability principles in the urban regeneration project was explored through examining the existence of these principles through an established theoretical framework. The theoretical framework included the main social sustainability principles of compactness and density, mixed-use and social mix, mobility, equitable access and spatial integration, safety and security, identity of place, and community participation. The utilized qualitative/quantitative tools of the case study method encompassed Space Syntax analysis of the urban form through relevant DepthmapX simulation variables. The assessment results revealed the gaps and potentials related to the application of these principles in the proposed design of the urban regeneration waterfront project of Zayed Port. Based on these outcomes, a set of social sustainability enhancement strategies has been recommended. T
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Why is it important?
he applied method with its tools as well as the revealed outcomes is envisaged to be significant to consider in the current and future urban regeneration designs of waterfront projects in the UAE’s cities distinguished with their long waterfronts such as Dubai, Sharjah, Ajman, and other cities, to assure the achievement of social sustainability principles in this important type of urban development.
Perspectives
The study aimed at assessing the current urban regeneration design concept of the Zayed Port from a social sustainability point of view. Accordingly, a conceptual framework for the main 7 principles of social sustainability and their indicators was briefly established and consequently used as a tool of assessing the original urban form of the urban regeneration design. The utilized qualitative and quantitative tools, especially Space Syntax simulation, proved valid in defining the shortcomings of the proposed design in relation to the examined social sustainability principles. These were related mainly to the mixed-use plan, modes of mobility, accessibility, safety and security, visual identity, and public participation. Based on the assessment findings, a recommended set of social sustainability improvement strategies has been identified encompassing valid, reliable, and highly contextual design guidelines that could meet the needs of people in this geographic and cultural context, and hence enhance their quality of social life and well-being. If applied, it is envisaged that these strategies would enhance the design of the urban regeneration project of the Zayed Port Waterfront to be a more socially sustainable project. In addition, appropriate consideration of social sustainability principles would mutually reflect on other sustainability measures. For example, the socially sustainable mixed-use design can improve the energy efficiency through the development of the public transportation node around the high-density areas and providing proper catchment distances for walking and cycling, etc. Finally, it is hoped that the outcomes of this research would pave the way for futuristic urban design scenarios that will lead to a more socially sustainable urban forms of waterfronts developments in the UAE and maybe in other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), Arab, and Middle Eastern cities that share many socio-cultural and environmental circumstances and contexts.
Dr Khaled Galal Ahmed
UAEU
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: TOWARDS SOCIALLY SUSTAINABLE WATERFRONT URBAN REGENERATION: THE CASE OF ZAYED PORT DESIGN, ABU DHABI, December 2021, WITPRESS LTD.,
DOI: 10.2495/sc210281.
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