Shape Your City

A computer monitor and a smartphone displaying a map interface with a focus on mobility routes such as pedestrian, bicycle, rollerblade, and boat routes, all with a minimalist, gray and white design on a terracotta background.

PAST PROJECT

Citizen Engagement Platform for Dubai Masterplan 2040

Interactive Data Visualization App Design & Development Interactive Installation

Shape Your City is an interactive installation and gamified web-app developed for Dubai Design Week 2021. It presents the Dubai 2040 Master Plan and invites citizens to contribute to its co-design. By merging physical exhibition design with digital participation tools, the project explores how installation design and gamification can promote inclusive citizen engagement in sustainable urban planning.

View of a modern, spacious indoor area through a rounded, textured-metal entrance frame. Inside, there are informational display panels, a reception desk, and seating areas with a few visitors. The space has a sleek, artistic design with curved walls and reflective flooring

Interior view of a modern building with multiple floors, yellow and black signage about shaping your city, and bright lighting.

WHY?

Urban planning often overlooks everyday citizens. Shape Your City empowers public voices through interactive tools, making city-making more inclusive, transparent, and responsive to real community needs

WHAT?

Shape Your City is a hybrid digital-physical installation that transforms public participation into urban planning data—enabling citizens to help shape the city’s future through accessible, tech-enabled co-design.

HOW?

The project uses a custom-designed web application and digital-physical exhibition setup to gather and visualize public input across themes like mobility, zoning, landscape, and culture. A real-time data visualization captured insights on a live city map.

WHERE?

The project premiered at Dubai Design Week 2021 at the D3 Architecture Exhibition and was later featured at international academic forums including Responsive Cities 2023 and DIGICOM 2022.

WHEN?

The project was developed and prototyped during 2021, with real-time engagement running throughout the Dubai Design Week exhibition period and continuing through academic dissemination.

WITH?

Shape Your City was co-created by RMJM, the Dubai Institute of Design and Innovation (DIDI), DesertInk, and AESG—collaborating to prototype interactive urban engagement tools for Dubai’s future.

LAYER 01

Mobility

The mobility layer introduces the visitors to the future transport plans for Dubai and allows them to suggest new mobility routes on the app: walking path, cycling path, hyperloop track, boat path and air tram path.

A circular diagram with segments labeled for sustainability, landscape, energy, and other themes. The diagram has black, gray, red, and purple design elements on a white background.

Exhibition display with large text, graphics, and directional arrows discussing future urban mobility and transportation trends.

Smartphone displaying a map of Dubai with labeled landmarks such as Dubai Police Academy, Hilton Garden Inn Dubai, Mall of the Emirates, and Al Zahra Hospital, on a light blue background.

LAYER 02

Landscape

This layer explores Dubai’s evolving natural environment. The physical panels present key landscape strategies, while the app allows users to add elements such as native trees, green parks, water features, and natural reserves—envisioning a more sustainable urban ecology.

A circular infographic with interconnected black lines forming irregular shapes on a white background. Various geometric shapes and QR codes are scattered around the diagram, which includes labels such as 'LANDSCAPE,' 'SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT,' and 'ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT,' among others. The overall design appears to be an abstract or conceptual visual representation.

Exhibition display panels about sustainable home zones and green infrastructure inside a modern building.

LAYER 03

Community

The community layer focuses on the 15-minute city model. Visitors learn about neighborhood planning through physical content, and on the app, they select a neighborhood and place essential amenities like schools, clinics, cultural spaces, and farmers’ markets to shape vibrant local living.

A circular infographic with various interconnected sections, icons, and QR codes representing concepts like sustainability, development, and innovation using gray, black, blue, and white colors.

Exhibition display panels with information on sustainable development, microclimate optimization, and urban green infrastructure in a modern indoor space.

Smartphone displaying an app about Dubai's cultural heritage with a map and an orange circular button asking if you know Dubai's hidden gems.

LAYER 04

Culture

The journey concludes at a live data visualization panel, where all visitor inputs are aggregated and displayed in real-time on a large digital map. This final moment transforms individual contributions into a collective urban vision—offering a shared, evolving snapshot of how Dubai’s future could be co-imagined by its citizens.