The Dubai’s Peri-urbanity

(all images are from Dubai Peri-Urban Derive #1 October 11,2019 © Cristiano Luchetti )

Traditionally, the city/countryside dichotomy is understood through the difference between the high density of volumes, functions, social relations of the urban context, and the low density of the same in extra-urban areas. In the Western notion, the countryside is commonly associated with "green" territories. Nowadays, they are remarkably anthropized through the intensive exploitation required by agriculture. In his recent research on the countryside, Rem Koolhaas argues that the western rural areas have reached a degree of specialization and exploitation in which it is difficult to recognize the traditional conception of natural territory. The same extra-urban regions are also affected by recent phenomena of migration that, through a slow de-urbanization, moves from city centers to re-colonize agricultural zones.

In hyperarid cities like Dubai, how are peri-urban areas different? In a region where the arable surface does not reach one point of percentage, what is the urban role of the "Desert-Side"? If the high productivity agricultural identity of the western countryside is absent, one may wonder if there are specific typological and functional characteristics that distinguish the sporadic urban settlements scattered in the desert of the emirate.

Recently, the population living in urban areas overtook the one living in the countryside. According to Rem Koolhaas, the study of cities and urban analysis has absorbed almost all of the scholarly work while the contemporary countryside as a subject of research has been largely neglected, for the peripheral areas of the cities of the Arabian Peninsula is even truer. Therefore, the need to investigate the contemporary "urban" condition of the "Desert-Side" through the analysis of its peculiar characteristics is very relevant. The goal of this research will be the definition of dedicated architectural and urban design strategies and solutions.