Last September, Dubai announced a new initiative called the Urban Think Tank & Design Lab (officially D.M-ULab). Then, this month, they announced that architects Santiago Calatrava and Kengo Kuma would be joining the think tank as "principal contributors."

The lab is focused on several key areas, but grouping them together, it's broadly focused on encouraging participatory design (as opposed to top-down planning), driving the use of new technologies such as AI, and enhancing quality of life through human-centric urban design.

This includes the creation of 20-minute communities where 80% of daily needs are within walking or riding distance.

This last focus area is particularly interesting because one could easily argue that modern Dubai started on the opposite end of this spectrum. Rather than focusing on the human scale, it was focused on the global-attention-grabbing-superlative scale.

When a remarkable new building is announced, the focus tends to be on the building as a symbolic object, not how it meets the ground and fits into its broader urban context. That's largely irrelevant to a global audience.

But it is this latter quality that will largely determine how human-centric the city ends up feeling — it's the spaces in between the buildings where public life happens.

So, how does this think tank intend to shift the city's focus? One of the first projects is the renewal of the city's older neighbourhoods through the creation of Barcelona-like superblocks that push vehicular traffic to their edges.

It's an admirable move, but it is noteworthy that this implementation is planned for the city's older neighbourhoods. Older neighbourhoods have the advantage of street grids that are already more human-centric in scale.

Last September, Dubai announced a new initiative called the Urban Think Tank & Design Lab (officially D.M-ULab). Then, this month, they announced that architects Santiago Calatrava and Kengo Kuma would be joining the think tank as "principal contributors."

The lab is focused on several key areas, but grouping them together, it's broadly focused on encouraging participatory design (as opposed to top-down planning), driving the use of new technologies such as AI, and enhancing quality of life through human-centric urban design.

This includes the creation of 20-minute communities where 80% of daily needs are within walking or riding distance.

This last focus area is particularly interesting because one could easily argue that modern Dubai started on the opposite end of this spectrum. Rather than focusing on the human scale, it was focused on the global-attention-grabbing-superlative scale.

When a remarkable new building is announced, the focus tends to be on the building as a symbolic object, not how it meets the ground and fits into its broader urban context. That's largely irrelevant to a global audience.

But it is this latter quality that will largely determine how human-centric the city ends up feeling — it's the spaces in between the buildings where public life happens.

So, how does this think tank intend to shift the city's focus? One of the first projects is the renewal of the city's older neighbourhoods through the creation of Barcelona-like superblocks that push vehicular traffic to their edges.

It's an admirable move, but it is noteworthy that this implementation is planned for the city's older neighbourhoods. Older neighbourhoods have the advantage of street grids that are already more human-centric in scale.