Landscaping & pools in Al Jurf — designed, previewed, built.

Al Jurf: retreat plots on a working coast

Al Jurf sits on the Sahel Al Emarat coast between Abu Dhabi and Dubai, and its plots are unlike anything in either city: large, quiet, many of them on the sea or the creek, and bought as retreats rather than as everyday homes. The brief follows the setting. Owners ask for privacy, calm, natural materials, pools that read as still water rather than as leisure features, and planting that will grow into a screen over time. The scale of the plots allows all of it, provided the design respects what the coast does to a garden.

The ground sets the rules. Coastal sand and sabkha with a saline water table mean that planting needs imported soil and drainage designed from the start, and that a pool shell has to be engineered for uplift when the ground is wet. These are not optional upgrades on this coast. They are the difference between a garden that is still there after its second summer and one that is not.

Building with salt, wind and a protected shoreline

Open coast means wind and salt in the air every day. Mild steel, untreated timber and delicate ornamentals fail here, often within a season. We specify stainless fixings, hardwoods or composites that tolerate salt, and a plant palette drawn from species that already live on this coast. Shade structures are engineered for gusts, not just for sun.

The mangrove and shoreline buffers around Al Jurf are protected and inspected. Anything close to the water edge needs the developer's agreement and the municipal permit before a spade goes in, and the setbacks are not negotiable. We treat them as a design input from the first visit, so the pool and the terraces are placed where they are allowed to be rather than redrawn after a refusal.

Approvals: developer first, then Abu Dhabi Municipality

External works at Al Jurf follow the developer's design guidelines and no-objection process, after which the Abu Dhabi Municipality building permit applies to the pool and structures. We prepare both submissions together as part of the project, with drawings and structural calculations, and we attend the inspections. The community and the municipality set their own timelines; we do not promise dates on their behalf.

Designing a retreat garden

A retreat garden is organised around where you sit and what you look at. On a sea plot that usually means the pool between the house and the horizon, a shaded pavilion that catches the evening breeze, and planting that frames the view rather than blocking it. On a creek or inland plot the privacy planting does more work, and the pool becomes the centre of a courtyard rather than a foreground to the sea. In both cases the lighting is designed low and warm, because a retreat is used at night as much as by day.

Estate planting plans at this scale are phased by nature: fast screening species that establish quickly, slower structural trees that take over as they mature, and irrigation zoned so that each gets what it needs and no more. We design the irrigation and the soil before we choose a single plant.

How a Montera project runs here

A designer visits the plot, measures it and walks the boundaries with you, including the shoreline setbacks. The design is built in 3D and shown to you in VR at full scale during the design stage. A bill of quantities follows, line by line with agreed rates for the defined scope, so you can see what the marine-grade specification costs against a standard one. During the build, daily photographs and a written record keep you informed even when you are not at the retreat, which on Al Jurf is most of the time.