The world’s first climate-controlled ‘Raining Street’ will offer year-round rainfall in Dubai, soon.

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Kleindienst Group, developer of The Heart of Europe – the $5 billion (Dh18.3 billion) master-planned leisure tourism island destination – has started developing a 1-kilometre long innovative and sustainable ‘Raining Street’ project that will offer rainfall throughout the year in the Europe Island surrounded by hotels and resorts, when Phase I of the project opens later this year.

Touted as a world first, the ‘Raining Street’ will offer year-round rainfall that will reduce the temperature to 27°C during the summer season providing a cool experience to visitors.

Boulevard experience

The street will be have a boulevard setting filled with street cafe, casual dining restaurants, retail outlets, fashion and souvenir shops. It will also host as many as 51 year-round European festivals.

A home-grown innovation envisioned by Josef Kleindienst, Chairman of Kleindienst Group and backed by Fraunhofer Institute, an application-oriented research organisation, the ‘Rain Street’ is expected to become a popular tourist attraction in the emirate.

“The Heart of Europe is an innovative and sustainable leisure tourism destination being built on a cluster of seven islands 4 kilometres off the coast of Dubai that will offer the best of European culture, heritage, cuisine and environment,” Josef Kleindienst said.

The Rainy Street is inspired by a 150-year-old architectural concept of Camillo Sitte, an Austrian architect, who proposed to build cities where everything was in walking distance.

“With the temperature ranging between 40 to 50°C during summer, people are not going to walk outside. Therefore, we need a technology to create an outdoor climate-controlled area. So, we contacted engineers and consultants from the European institute who visited Dubai in 2008 to understand the climate here and conduct their research.”

The technology interferes with the temperature, humidity and wind to ensure a cooler clime outdoor. The rainy street is also a sustainable project as it uses solar energy and it produces zero carbon emission.

“Fraunhofer engineers asked us if we wanted to reduce the temperature as in any other buildings and malls by using cold air, or we wanted cold water in the form of rain. We opted for rain as we knew people would love it, especially in the summer season,” he added.

“But in one of the plazas on the island, we will control the temperature through technical snow produced from water that will be environment-friendly.”

Eco-friendly project

The Heart of Europe will deploy sustainable landscaping that will be pesticide free, fungicide free and will be showered with recycled water. The island is also committed to be totally car free, use clean energy and will eventually offer sustainable water transportation to the guests.

The Heart of Europe was designed with a zero-discharge policy and zero micro-plastics policy.