CHARTER OF DUBAI, X-PALM

SMAQ (GERMANY 2009)

Palm Jumeraih is the grand icon of Dubai’s look-at-me-urbanism. Behind the show, the man-made island performs as a luxury refuge, retreating from its wider context, facilitating individualism, exclusion and perceived independency.

The Charter of Dubai takes the Palm as a challenging testing ground to imagine a socially and environmentally integrated urbanity. It does so by rereading and readjusting the Palm’s geometry, thus investigating its immanent formal opportunities. If the question is whether social cultures can be patterned through formal configurations of space, the Palm’s straight answer is: yes. SMAQ however take this as a tool to imagine a different urban future.

ANDREAS QUEDNAU SABINE MÜLLER

ANDREAS QUEDNAU

― Artist

Andreas Quednau is founding partner of SMAQ and Professor of Urban Design at Leibniz University Hannover. Andreas Quednau received a Diploma in Architecture from Berlin University of Technology and a Master in Advanced Architectural Design (hons) from Columbia University, Graduate School for Architecture Planning and Preservation in New York. He worked for Diller Scofidio + Renfro (New York), KCAP (Rotterdam) and Arata Isozaki (Berlin) before establishing SMAQ with Sabine Müller in 2001 (2001-2005 located in Rotterdam, since 2005 located in Berlin). Andreas Quednau has received several international awards including the Architectural Review Award for Emerging Architects and the Holcim Award for Sustainable Construction. He taught at the Berlin University of Technology (2005-2007 and 2008-2009).

SABINE MÜLLER

Sabine Müller, a founding partner of SMAQ – architecture urbanism research, received a Diploma in Architecture from Kassel University and a Master in Advanced Architectural Design from Columbia University, Graduate School for Architecture Planning and Preservation in New York. She worked with West 8 (Rotterdam) and Asymptote (New York) before establishing SMAQ with Andreas Quednau in 2001 first in Rotterdam (2001-2005), then in 2005 in Berlin and in 2009 in Stuttgart. Sabine Müller has received several international awards including the Architectural Review Award for Emerging Architects and the Holcim Award for Sustainable Construction both in 2008. She taught at Karlsruhe State School for Design (2002), from 2004-2005 at the Delft University of Technology.

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