WHERE once was a 10-km stretch of dusty ground sandwiched between a pipeline and a beach facing a saltwater inlet, the Gulf’s most urbane waterfront community is now taking shape.

Al Raha Beach – at the heart of which sits HQ – will be home to 120,000 people, attracted to a waterfront development of canal and beachfront homes located between the centre of Abu Dhabi and the airport. It includes nine hotels, four marinas, a commercial district as well as parks, cultural and entertainment facilities and five beaches.
“In contrast to many recent developments in the region, the Dh66 billion ($18 billion) Al Raha is an object lesson in urban design rather than simply architecture writ large,” says Allan Stevens, a director of Esquisse Design Studio, the masterplanner,
Its 6.8 million sq m have been conceived as a romantic waterworld, a skein of canals crossed by bridges and tree-lined paths, punctuated with fountain courts and all linked by a state-of-the-art light rail and water transport system.
One of the key objectives for Al Raha is to enable residents to live, work and play within the project and reach anywhere by car, by light rail, by bus or by water.
“Sound urban design principles have been used throughout to create active frontages to properties (which, in turn, leads to lively public areas) and a necklace of routes through the site that unfold as a sequence of beguiling urban spaces.
“It is the careful details about how people relate to place, the disposition of the public realm, to its streets, paths and squares and the mix of uses fronting on to them that are, for Esquisse, the key to giving somewhere a public life. Al Raha is designed to demonstrate this in full,” he comments.
The community is divided into 11 villages, each with its own character such as the wharf-style apartments of Al Rumaila, the central business district of Al Dana – home to HQ – and the garden quarter of Al Zeina with its luxury residences among beachfront groves.
Esquisse’s urban design framework has also provided the context for iconic buildings by architectural luminaries including Foster + Partners, Asymptote and Raphael Vinoly.
“A notable feature of Al Raha is the use of water – animated and calm, it is also employed as an entertaining spectacle to invigorate this waterfront realm,” says Stevens. “Attractions like playful, digitally-operated fountains are, however, integrated into the daily urban scene, not segregated from it. They are elements of the communal townscape that will bear repeated visits. The magical will be incorporated into everyday life.”
As well as masterplanning the entire Al Raha project, Esquisse has shaped the detailed design for Al Zeina, which is nearing completion. The studio has also drawn up a development control plan to govern the detailed progress on Al Raha and three-dimensional block development guidelines that serve as sales and marketing tools for the developer Aldar Properties. The design throughout has been influenced by the very specific Abu Dhabi cultural traditions.
Stevens describes the project as unique. “It has to be delivered over 10 years but has to read as if it has evolved over time. It is like a different version of the Venetian experience, a great water city,” he says.

Al Zeina
Al Zeina is the strategic gateway to the Al Raha Beach Development. Its 1,221 dwellings form a self-sustaining community that enjoys prime views along the developing Al Raha waterfront.
It also has its own 500-m-long natural beach. “Esquisse has employed culturally-appropriate and environmentally sound urban design principles to endow the premium community with a unique identity,” Stevens says.
Al Zeina has been organised around two main orientations – firstly access to water and views over water and secondly the exposure to the shady arcades of the neighbourhood’s high street – a vital element in creating a genuinely local community, he says.
The mixed-use development with shops, restaurants, cafes and a supermarket encompasses some 133,000 sq m. Its built form is a careful arrangement of 12 apartment towers up to 14 storeys high as well as townhouses and villas, which are arranged on a series of raised podiums in front of the apartment towers.
A defining feature of Al Zeina is the garden atria contained within the towers. These have multiple functions; firstly, their planted interiors contribute towards the precinct’s sustainability and to the cool and tranquil design language of Al Zeina. They also act as tower entrances for residents and as the location for shared facilities such as childcare centres, indoor pools and gyms.
Esquisse has also used these architectural devices to create a sense of airy freedom within the development that is both climatically appropriate to Abu Dhabi and helps engender a care-free lifestyle.
Many apartments are two-storeys high to maximise water views and some dwellings also incorporate soaring double-height spaces. These qualities have been furthered by a design framework for public spaces and garden areas that incorporates traditional landscaping strategies such as groves of trees, water channels, pools and mosaics. Shading structures amid the richly planted gardens including pergolas, gazebos, colonnades and pierced screens all add to the relaxed and sheltered atmosphere.
Specialising in masterplanning for legacy developments throughout the world, Esquisse says its team of architects and designers employ a rigorous design process to deliver world-class design with a methodology that integrates comprehensive research, urban planning, architectural and civic place-making expertise.
The practice has also specialised in creating concepts for complex and valuable waterfront sites that incorporate best urban design practice.
Established by Stevens and Naomi Fry in May 2005, Esquisse’s recent projects in the region include a masterplan for the waterfront PK Resort Development in Bahrain, and a dazzling array of projects across Abu Dhabi notably the Al Raha Beach Development and the detailed masterplan for the transformation of 25 sq km of desert into the leisure and residential oasis of the $40 billion Yas Island Development.
“As a practice, we understand development needs, our first priority is to assist our developer clients in creating a scheme which is commercially viable,” says Stevens. “Esquisse — meaning the first sketch in an artistic creation – is central because drawing up ideas and discussing proposals immediately with a client is an intensive process of collaboration.”
“We have made the conscious decision to think big for our clients but to remain a relatively small studio of under 50 professionals in order to be responsive and to allow both directors’ personal involvement in each project. This also allows us the flexibility to expand the team as required, calling on other consulting professionals drawn from a pool of world-class talent,” he says.
“Architects are often just interested in objects, landscapers in gardens and engineers in rolling out infrastructure, but we see ourselves as being much more holistic about building a place. Our practice takes our projects one step further; thinking about packaging and messages and how the brand of a development can capture the spirit of a place. It gives us an extraordinary breadth in language and in repertoire,” he concludes.