Exciting news! Leticia Izquierdo and Thomas Sanchez won 1st prize to design the public space for Ghaf Woods, Dubai's first car-less forest community!
Their proposal, 'Chaal', is centered around a sunken plaza with water elements that help cool the air, inspired by the ancient stepwells of Rajasthan, where communities have gathered for centuries in the shade, cooled by water.
We brought that idea into the desert: cars and infrastructure sit on a second level underground, so every home connects directly to the forest and the plazas within it. As you walk in through the trees, the canopies slowly reveal themselves.