Our “The Source” project has been Shortlisted for the Landscape Middle East Awards 2025

22 Oct, 2025

We are pleased to share that our project “The Source” has been shortlisted for the Landscape Middle East Awards 2025 in the category of Biodiversity & Ecological Restoration. The ceremony will take place on Monday, 17 November 2025, at the St. Regis Saadiyat Resort, Abu Dhabi.

In a district of architectural icons, The Source is modest in area yet generous in intent. It does not view the city as a finished object, but as a living milieu to be welcomed back. We begin with soil, continue with water, and work with shade and airflow, so that urban nature can resume its quiet work. Rather than impose a final form, we set the conditions: a landscape that composes itself over time.
Connectivity begins at the scale of an urban step. The site becomes an ecological pause, one of the dotted “stations” linking Saadiyat’s green spaces. From place to place, these pockets of breathing room allow life, and walkers alike, to move, pause, and move on. Urban coherence arises not from a single grand gesture, but from a series of quiet invitations in dialogue with one another.

Here, care is an act of drawing. Mowing becomes both pencil and eraser: a seasonal choreography that keeps open spaces, for wind, pollinators, and wayfinding, while allowing certain areas to thicken for shelter and nesting. Edges soften and sharpen with each cut; rooms appear and dissolve; the plan remains legible without ever becoming fixed.

Biodiversity settles in by welcome. We pair introduced native species with spontaneous vegetation, free to establish itself wherever the site invites it. Over the months, communities take shape, resilient and particular to this place, beyond what any static palette could achieve.

Water is the quiet engine. Through fine micro-terraces, every drop of rainfall and irrigation is caught, slowed, and absorbed. The air grows cooler, roots reach deeper, and the hydrology takes on the manners of a well-kept place: nothing wasted, everything considered.

Because the living world never stands still, the place remains in motion. Light slips, edges drift, paths confirm themselves underfoot. The year writes itself in textures and heights – growth, cut, rest, return – less spectacle than rhythm.
As a counterpoint, we have framed shifting views toward the district’s landmarks: Louvre Abu Dhabi on one side, the Zayed National Museum on the other. Monuments and everyday ecologies enrich one another when seen together.

If there is a signature, it lies in restraint: a light touch guided by observation; porous edges between human and non-human users; and the choice to make time an ally. The Source suggests that, in the city, the most contemporary act may be to design for the unforeseen, and to celebrate a garden that never comes to a halt.

