Al Safa Community Park

Al Safa Community Park, Dubai By Natalie Naccache


While choosing locations, I gravitated quite naturally towards public spaces that are embraced by residents, locals and tourists alike. There’s something beautifully understated about how communities in Dubai wholeheartedly adopt public areas and turn them into active, connected recreational spaces. There’s also a present desire to connect with natural attractions, now more than ever, and the meditative qualities of slow living can be experienced through these natural scenes. While that is apparent to locals and long-time residents here, there still seems to be a dominant conception of Dubai as a concrete jungle where hard-and-fast is the preferred pace of moving and living, which is what has earned it’s reputation as a transitional city. I think that observing examples of public recreation, whether it is meditation by the lakes, people-watching from a park bench, or gliding over the tides at the beach, is a challenge to this monolithic notion, and an appreciation of the people and the culture that make the city what it is under its steely exterior.