Al- Hara

Abstract

Contemporary urbanism prioritizes efficiency over belonging, producing cities that are technically advanced but socially fragmented. Dubai exemplifies this crisis. Once a culturally rich port city, it has become a global symbol of technological and architectural spectacle, yet this advancement has come at the cost of social cohesion and spiritual vitality. As the most visible manifestation of algorithmic planning and car-centric development, Dubai reveals problems that increasingly afflict cities worldwide. This thesis examines how prioritizing efficiency over belonging generates placeless environments in contemporary urbanism and explores what design interventions can create integration instead of fragmentation. While conventional development asks how many units, how fast, how cheap, this research reframes urban design around three critical questions: for whom, to what end, and at what cost? Through analysis of Dubai's urban transformation and the development of design proposals, the thesis demonstrates that socially integrated neighborhoods require interventions at four interconnected scales: building typology, street network, neighborhood transformation, and regional/cultural identity, each addressing a different dimension of urban fragmentation. The research contributes to architecture and urban planning by offering a multi-scalar framework that reconnects technical efficiency with social belonging, demonstrating how contemporary cities can achieve both progress and place.