CHAPMAN Taylor, a key architect and masterplanner, recently unveiled the masterplan concept for Al Reem Residential Community, a large, multi-tower housing and hospitality scheme on Abu Dhabi’s Al Reem Island.

 The ambitious urban design creates a new city district which combines respect for the region’s history and heritage with a bold embrace of the future within a landscape of rivers, mangroves, beaches and desert. The new community will be fully integrated within the natural environment, with beautiful views and extensive green landscaping, says Chapman Taylor.

 The design for the site integrates three parcels of land – which are currently separated by roads – via an elevated parkscape and living bridges, providing the sense of being one community with a shared identity.

 The concept seeks to actively connect the new city district via a series of landscaped podiums that serve as both an asset for the residences and as a visual signature for the masterplan. A mix of leisure, dining, retail and cultural facilities and experiences are interspersed throughout in the Al Reem Residential Community, thus helping it to foster a vibrant environment and social and economic sustainability.

 According to Chapman Taylor, the eight towers which will stand on the sites feature expressive, futuristic façades, the designs for which are inspired by the mangroves which make the island famous, each appearing to “grow out of” the elevated landscaped podiums.  The curves of the organically flowing architecture draw to mind the flowing riverscapes around the mangroves and the undulating dunes of the desert, it states.

 “All these towers step in height, with the highest being over 200 m tall, with a combined gross floor area (GFA) of 258,000 sq m,” says a company spokesman.

 The residences are provided in a mix of one, two and three-bed and penthouse formats. One tower includes a luxury, 600-key hotel, he states.

 The masterplan envisages the fully integrated urban community as an engine for the future growth of the residential masterplan and the wider Central Reem Island urban district, he adds.