Monitoring Desk
DUBAI: URB, a Dubai-based architectural firm, has proposed a series of ambitious, environmentally focused designs – including an indoor climate controlled “sustainable urban highway” – to transform the emirates into a hub of sustainability and wellness.
The massive structure, stretching over 93 kilometers (58 miles), is designed to wrap around the city, providing a car-free “green corridor” filled with plants and trees for residents to walk or cycle around.
If built it would be the “smartest” cycling and running set up anywhere in the world, according to URB’s CEO Baharash Bagherian. “The project is aimed at making Dubai the most connected city on Earth by foot or bike,” he added.
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URB has also devised an enormous agritourism project for Dubai’s desert which, if built, could become a new benchmark for sustainable agriculture, environmental education and green tourism in the region, the firm said.
The “Agri Hub”, a project separate from “The Loop”, would cover roughly 40 hectares, having spaces for education and research, eco-lodges, farm shops, and farm-to-table restaurants and cafes.
Bagherian said that a visit to the “Agri Hub” would help guests to understand and engage more in sustainable practices.
Bagherian has previously designed the Phase 2 of “The Sustainable City” in Dubai and worked on similar green infrastructures currently being built in Yiti, Oman, and Yas Island in Abu Dhabi.
The snake-like structure of the Agri-Hub would be formed of a huge steel canopy and paneled with pre-cast concrete, with the carbon cost counterbalanced by the operations of the site.
URB says the project is aimed to be zero-waste and on-site transport would be fossil-fuel-free. It would have its own biogas plant to generation using organic waste, while parts of the development would be partially underground, to keep buildings cool.
