Most of the information about the world humans receive through a visual sensory channel. The quality of such information highly depends on the amount of distractions that restrain people from understanding the essence of what they see. Visual pollution, as McCullough (2013) puts it, distorts our perception of urban environment and makes uncomfortable the mere presence in a polluted area. Dubai, as one of the fastest growing cities, has also experienced several problems with “ambient,” a holistic view of a city. In light of this, it is paramount to explore the specific problems the city has dealt with, and the present challenges that await resolution.
Past Successes
Some of the most meaningful improvements were made in the sphere of advertisement. The UAE has recently adopted the advertising standards issued by National Media Council. They regulate the content and the form of advertisements in way that no offensive, prohibited or otherwise inappropriate content will be shown on the streets or on the public screens. Prior to that, no universal standard existed and regulations had to be checked in other agencies, which created the ground for mistakes and inappropriate content. One of the provisions of the document states that the content of an ad has to contain true and accurate information. As an example, one of the Virgin Holidays’ brochures in Dubai was found out to be untrue and misleading, for which they were banned (Swan, 2013). The new laws contribute to accuracy of facts in the information realm of the city preventing such accidents.
Another issue has been tackled recently by the adoption of Dubai Design Code. This code has to eliminate the present abundance of visual pollution in the form of excessive luminance, light reflection or contrast in a variety of settings such as building interior, exterior, public transport, street advertisement, led-lighted billboards and other items. This improvement helps follow the principles of non-distraction and non-pervasiveness of the city media set out by McCullough (2013). For instance, standardized fonts, colors, and sizes in signs help people navigate Dubai with more precision.
Present Challenges
Presently, Dubai continues to struggle with issues pertaining to its unofficial status as a city under permanent construction. The amount of building sites and the visual pollution they create signifies the need for solution. Another issue that obstructs the visitor and the resident’s holistic perception of the city is its highways that block the view of the skyline, sights and buildings. Their visual unattractiveness and noise distracts the people from adequate communication and information sensing. Lengthy linear objects like the mentioned highways or skyscrapers violate the principle of human-scaled design and make a person feel uneasy in the concrete jungle of massive structures. The sometimes-excessive use of glass and other light-reflecting materials harms eyes and interferes with adequate perception. These problems of Dubai need to be tackled in order to create a good sensual image of the city and generate undisturbed information flow that adds to the pleasant urban experience.
Conclusion
Dubai is a fast-growing and fast-changing city, which, as any human, makes mistakes and corrects them. Despite the current problems with visual and audial pollution, distortion of adequate scale and other issues, city officials implement codes and regulations to amend the situation. Such decisions include Dubai design code and advertisement standards. The positive effect of these documents can already be seen on the streets, while such structural issues like the abundance of non-human-scale architecture are yet to be resolved.
References
McCullough, M. (2013). Ambient commons: Attention in the age of embodied information. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Swan, M. (2013). Dubai Atlantis advertisement on Dolphin Bay banned. Web.