Date: 2014
Client: Private
Area: 3000 m2
Status: Interrupted
Collaboration: BLANKPAGE Architects
Abu Dhabi's mangrove is a delicate preserved landscape. Despite the many drastic changes happening around it, the mangrove is protected and is an important landscape feature of the site. We based our landscape proposal on the relationship between the beach and the mangrove beyond. Blankpage, the team of architects with whom we were teamed up, proposed an architecture that offered a ground floor in relation to the beach, and a podium hosting the pool and deck. An atrium links the two floors, we imagined it as a circle of water and plants overflowing from above. The podium is a large elevated grass garden with open views towards the horizon. It hosts a gym, pavilion, and a pool. The floating slabs of the building stories end with a garden at each level. The limit between indoor and outdoor is blurred, large glass panels allow to merge both spaces when the weather is suitable. These gardens on the edge of the slab transform the building into a stacked gardens. The top floor includes introverted lush rooftop gardens. The choice of plants is variable according to the location: the dry, beach like atmosphere of the ground floor, the grass garden at the podium level and the lush gardens at the top floor.