Media Zone
IGA role: Landscape design
Collaboration: MZ Architects & AECOM
Location: Abu Dhabi, UAE
Strategically located on Yas Island, the Media Zone project spreads across two plots divided by a highway. The 2 plots of different sizes are each adjacent to a park offering an interesting opportunity for extension and interaction. The large plot is in turn split in 2 at the ground level by a viewing corridor that stretches to the sea.
The landscape design proposes fulfilling the project’s dual role of an urban magnet and diffusion center while ensuring an integration within the context through revolving around 3 major axis:
1- The Wadi
Acting as a spine and linking the 2 plots on both sides of the highway by a natural path that drains the flow of pedestrians into and throughout the project. Inspired from the local natural landscape, all elements within that path will be randomly scattered, be they planted pots, street furniture or lighting.
2- The Grid
Complementing the architecture scheme and language that is inspired from the structures of old forts yet elevated to allow a fluid circulation. The landscape character and its components outside the Wadi and on the periphery of the site follow a geometrical pattern to evoke the traditional agricultural practices of the palm groves and provide permeability from all directions.
3- The Corridor
Interacting with the viewing corridor by creating a plaza at the intersection between the Wadi and the Corridor towards which the bleachers are oriented.
The Landscape Design of the Media Zone project proposes a matrix made of a single module of 40x40cm with different colors laid in clusters or strips to create the pixelated and weaves patterns that characterize the surrounding neighborhood and comply with the master plan regulations. The dark modules mimic the nature flow towards the wadi and become dense at the project’s central spine to direct people’s movement to where all the activities are expected to take place. Breaking down the patterns of pixels and weaves into a single 40x40cm element allows the landscape design to be flexible as well as aesthetically pleasing and functionally usable.