Downtown Circle: Giant ring surrounds Burj Khalifa

Architecture firm Znera Space has created a radical concept that would change the Dubai skyline, the national news reported.

According to the report the planned project is known as Downtown Circle and is a 550-metre-tall ring, which will encircle Burj Khalifa. Designers hope it will shake up traditional ideas of gated communities and skyscraper homes. It is also intended to be sustainable and self-sufficient.

Artist illustrations show the striking scale of the structure, which is hoped will encompass all of Downtown Dubai with a circumference of three kilometres.

It will be broken down into smaller units, which will contain homes as well as public, commercial and cultural spaces.

The ambitious project has been drawn up by Najmus Chowdry and Nils Remess, co-founders of Znera Space, who often focus on experimental architecture that explores and addresses social boundaries and environmental issues.

Downtown Circle was created by the pair during the pandemic, which sparked the idea of rethinking how we live in cities, particularly in skyscrapers, the national news reported.

“We wanted to go down to the basics of how gated communities were established as a very horizontal built environment,” Chowdry tells The National. “But you can’t have that here because of the dense urban fabric of Dubai. The best way to explore and practise this concept was in Downtown itself.”

“The concept was of a vertical city,” adds Remess. “When Covid-19 hit hard, we thought a lot about suitability and how can we change things, and how we can create better urban planning. We looked at aspects such as garbage disposal, food production, traffic problems, pollution. We put all these things together and came up with the concept.”

According to national news the Downtown Circle is made up of five levels and would sit on five points, or pillars, embedded into the ground. The massive span of the circle itself would be composed of two main rings held together by a continuous green belt named the Skypark which vertically connects the floors with each other creating a connected three-dimensional urban green eco-system.