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| Modern public spaces allow for new forms of social interaction |
Just
spent a couple of days in Dubai (on the way back from India) with
Fareena Khaliq, a colleague I had originally made contact with
through the Landscape Dept. at Sheffield. She works here running a
landscape design and maintenance company. It has been a great
opportunity to think through what planting design can do in the
Middle East, and in desert environments more generally. We also met
up with Kamelia Zaal, the designer of last year's Chelsea garden 'The
Beauty of Islam'.
Lots
of questions. How do you make a garden or public planting which
requires minimum irrigation but which performs visually? How do you
make gardens for a population with no history or culture of
gardening? How can the traditional Islamic garden be re-interpreted?
First
– some background. I find Dubai a strange place. Superficially
ultra modern with its skyline which looks like an architecture
student's models have all come to life, it is in many ways a
traditional family autocracy, run in a relatively benign fashion (in
comparison with some of the other family-run countries in the
neighbourhood!), with 80% of the population as non-citizens, simply
here to work, and therefore with no real stake in the place - a
set-up unlike anywhere else in the world. It is utterly unsustainable
in its power and water consumption. However, it runs very smoothly
and is the sort of place where experiments are possible as technical
and design innovation is highly prized, and as perhaps the ultimate
meeting place of east and west, tradition and modernity, it may yet
surprise us.
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| A scene at the very successful and peaceful Al Barari location using recycled water. The remainder of the pictures show here as well. |
There
are public landscapes here which many of us westerners would take for
granted, but which are not necessarily part of Middle Eastern
culture, like public parks, and cafes in landscaped retail
environments. These are not the male-dominated spaces they might be
in many Muslim countries. and it was great to see a lot of
traditionally-dressed women in groups around after dark, even some on
their own. I can't help the feeling that public landscaping is
playing a role here in developing more relaxed social settings than
you might expect in the region.
The
planting is generally desperately unimaginative and insanely
unsustainble, grass and clipped bougainvillea would you believe!
Fareena says that she wants to “bring forth
solutions in the public and the private realm that use a mix of
native and adapted flora - planting that is robust and varied- hence
ecologically rich and still suitable to the local clime”. But, she
is limited by the desire of many clients for greenery and as
so often the case, the availability of plants from nurseries is very
limited. There is a rich regional desert flora but it lacks the lush
look that clients want, so nurseries are in no hurry to grow it.
Which
brings us back to the Islamic garden, which is traditionally an
enclosed space, with flowing water in formal rills and lush planting
– everything which the desert is not, a vision of paradise, in a
metaphorical and spiritual sense. This model is ideal for the way
people live in the Middle East, which is very family-centred and
behind high walls (this mentality, with the implication that no-one
outside the wall can be trusted, arguably lies behind the extreme
dysfunctionality of some Middle Eastern societies, the political
results of which we are constantly reminded). The Mughal gardens of
northern India and Pakistan take this concept and expand it, but they
still remain fatally dependent on water.
One
way forward was shown by a visit to Al-Barari, an gated residential
community developed by local designer Kamelia Zaal, who made a garden
for Chelsea last year (The Beauty of Islam). With its dense blended
mix of trees and shrubs, narrow water ways and intimate views, it
seemed the perfect modern naturalistic take on the Islamic garden
concept, a magical oasis. Kamelia's theme has been the spread of Arab
culture and Islamic faith through trade, and the plant origins very
much reflect this. It is of course an upmarket development, but as so
often in the world of art and design, elite places can often help
inspire and facilitate other, more democratic, developments. The
water is in fact derived from treated waste so is sustainable on that
level. There is a great deal of birdlife to complete the oasis
feeling.
Shared
public spaces are something of a novelty, and Dubai's having them a
sure sign of progress, but in dry environments they cannot have
anything of the lushness of the traditional Islamic garden beyond
very small areas. To us, the obvious solution is to use local
drought-tolerant flora, but to locals this has little value, and is
not appreciated. In addition, Fareena explained to me that many of
the spiky desert plants used in dry garden design in the
Mediterranean or the Americas, like agaves and yuccas, are perceived
negatively - as aggressive and unattractive. Working out how to turn
people on to the beauty of drought-tolerant plants looks like a
challenge but has to be the only way. There is a widespread nostalgia
here for the traditional desert-based lifestyle of the Emiratis now
long since lost, now that the palm leaf hut has been swapped for the
air-conditioned villa in two generations. Perhaps appeals to
traditional landscapes may be the way forward.
* * * * *
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