The Beach • JBR

This guide to The Beach at JBR in Dubai starts with the frantic pace of JBR's construction in the mid-2000s, when dozens of cranes worked the skyline at once to raise one of the world's largest residential developments. It then turns to The Beach itself, opened in 2014 as a bet that Dubai might want to be outdoors, and the design choices behind it that earned an Aga Khan Award nomination. Listen for how the promenade now feels compared with the frenzy that built the towers behind it.