Desert Campus

Pragma developed a master plan for a new administrative campus on four square kilometers of land along the new Khor Fakkan road. The scheme promotes a campus that is dense, compact, mixed, sustainable, and centered around pedestrian movement.

This new urban center is meant to serve the surrounding suburban residential areas and provide the governmental and administrative facilities they need. The result is a hyper-dense, ecologically sensitive urban territory sitting within the desert setting with diverse building stock, cultural and recreational features, and a varied network of interconnected public open spaces.

Twelve development clusters or quads are defined by “green fingers” which function as innovative green infrastructures and parkland zones. The urban fabric within each development cluster creates a range of interconnected urban neighborhoods. The structure of the urban block is defined by the campus quads.

Each of the individual campuses will be unique within the masterplan’s overall identity and will provide a different set of concentrations of governmental, cultural and civic facilities. A multi-modal green spine connects the districts, echoing their individual identities as it runs along the east-west axis.

Each campus quad is governed by a set of sustainability metrics and zoning criteria defining density, plot coverage, program distribution, and use.

Team: Jafar Abbas, Fayez Najeeb, Nihal Halimeh, Sindhu Tadikonda

Client: Sharjah Department of Town Planning and Survey

Collaborators: Islam Mashtooly, Julius Durana, Drew Gilbert, Hananeh Misaghi, Visualisation by Arqui9

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