Saadiyat Cultural District

Saadiyat Cultural District will feature several attractions with an international draw, including world-class museums such as the Louvre Abu Dhabi, the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi and the Zayed National Museum, a Performing Arts Centre and one of the largest retail malls in the region. Saadiyat Cultural District will be a place where people connect with each other through the universal language of the arts.

InSite has been engaged to design the entire public realm and streetscapes for the district starting with the street leading to the Louvre Abu Dhabi site and subsequently continuing throughout the development. The landscape design for the streetscapes aims to create a canvas for the Cultural District, with its own distinctive sense of place and identity. Its landscape features shall provide reference points within the development, whilst blending with the surrounding landscape context, urban fabric and the adjacent developments.

The design draws inspiration from the local natural environment of Saadiyat Island, using high white and beige colours, with coastal planting to evoke the aesthetic of the beach and high quality materials throughout, befitting the profile of this magnificent new district of Abu Dhabi. InSite also drafted a detailed set of public realm design guidelines in the early stages of the project, to agree the design ambition for the subsequent phases with the local authorities.