ABSTRACT
Taking the Yas Island east exit from Sheikh Zayed Road-the road connecting Abu Dhabi and Dubai-one encounters a network of wide and mostly empty highways appearing to serve nothing but a long succession of construction sites. The scale of the physical infrastructure deployed onto this desert landscape is impressive. Empty steel structures by the intersections-latticed sheets of doubly curved metal folded across two twisted arches-shade the empty corners where one day people will wait for a bus. A long stretch of the six-lane highway is edged by a double row of light posts that are neither vertical nor perfectly straight; they tilt to one side and bend slightly near the middle-a gesture that, repeated ad-infinitum along the road, offers a distinctive image to the driver: as if the effect of a sudden magnetic force had distorted a myriad of wires. At night, these lit wires divide the Emirati desert from the Arabian Gulf waters, offering a breath-taking view of carefully landscaped, futuristic isolation.
