The BurJuman Shopping Centre

The BurJuman Shopping Centre.
[More Images]

To suggest that the BurJuman is in any way unsophisticated would be untrue. You have as broad and as good a choice of outlets as any of the mega-malls, but there’s a logic to it.

And the fact is, when your wardrobe needs an overhaul, what you want is choice and convenience in a comfortable environment; you’re probably not that bothered as to whether your shopping experience is ‘themed’.

A friend of mine once said that after a day out at Ibn Battuta Mall, he wasn’t surprised they’d named it after a guy who travelled 75,000 miles, over 30 years, through most of the known world and beyond, and that a day spent shopping there had given him some sympathy for him.

Story continues below

Advertisement

FEATURED COMMENT Please click here to comment on this article

But there is a lot more to the BurJuman than just an appealing sense of scale. The curved walkways have a nice ‘street’ feel to them, and on all levels you have shops to your left and right, without overlooking a colossal atrium.

This eliminates the irritation of seeing the shop you want and yet having to walk 30 yards, across a bridge, and 30 yards back again. From a design point of view, a curved corridor will always create a greater sense of anticipation and drama than a straight walkway, however grand.

Furthermore, the walkways repeatedly split into two, away from a central feature area, curve back on themselves, and then meet again further up. The focal areas in which they converge are generally populated with either exhibitions and displays, or comfortable and convenient cafés and coffee shops.

This creates a sense of both continuity and direction, and also a feeling of your overall shopping experience being broken into bite-sized chunks. There’s plenty of scope for a disinterested partner to relax at ease while 20 garments are tried and rejected five shops back.

The fact that the layout is linear, and the focal areas so recognisably different, interesting and comfortable, thankfully negates the necessity for those terrifying ‘You Are Nowhere’ directory boards you see in the mega-malls.

There is also an interesting use of materials and finishes in the BurJuman extension. There is much emphasis on creating a softer feel than you would normally expect in a shopping centre, and this comes together with some seriously intricate floor and ceiling details to create a sense of being in a rather large living room.

But, perhaps more than any of this, the BurJuman’s contrasting mix of old and new, high and low, attracts a full range of people from all of Dubai’s walks of life. And yet it manages to do this without ever feeling too busy.Perhaps the fact that it is not designed to overwhelm is the reason for its sustained popularity.

After all, for those of us who actually live in Dubai, there is only so much of the biggest, fastest, glitziest, costliest, tallest and shiniest you can stand, before you say ‘for goodness sake, just give me something that works’! By Justin Penketh