Sir David Chipperfield Brings His Architectural Rigor to Dubai

In the ever-evolving architectural landscape of Dubai, where ambition meets spectacle, Sir David Chipperfield - the 2023 Pritzker Prize Laureate - brings his signature restraint and meticulous rigour to the city’s Canal District. Park Lamar, a 160,000-square-metre development by Lamar Development balances exclusivity with accessibility, private sanctuaries with dynamic public realms.

Slated for completion in 2028, the project unfolds as a composition of five buildings, integrating nearly 200 residences with a carefully curated mix of boutiques, a 72-room boutique hotel, restaurants, cultural spaces and offices. At its heart, three floors of amenities - including pools, spas and fitness spaces - cater to a spectrum of lifestyles.

Chipperfield’s architectural language at Park Lamar is a study in measured elegance. The design echoes the rhythmic clarity of his earlier Brutalist-inspired works, yet here, softened by a palette of natural materials, it leans into a more contemporary sensibility. The façade, defined by a strict modularity and stepped volumes, establishes a quiet dialogue between form and function, structure and experience.

Perhaps its most striking gesture, however, is its seamless connection to Safa Park, Dubai’s largest urban green space. The development’s gardens act as a natural extension of this 64-hectare oasis, while generous atriums, landscaped terraces, and pedestrian promenades carve out intimate, walkable micro-neighbourhoods. The result is an architecture that resists the impulse to separate - blurring the boundaries between indoor and outdoor, private and public.

Photography Credit: David Chipperfield