Broadway Malyan's design response is organised around five vision aims that establish Muscat as a greener, more liveable, better-connected, productive, resilient and safe capital and structured upon one overarching concept: the Blue Spine. A primary transit artery running through the metropolitan region from Sultan Haitham City in the west to Ruwi and Muttrah in the east, the Blue Spine threads together seven transit-oriented development nodes, each assigned a distinct economic identity, from financial services and technology to logistics, tourism and cultural heritage. An integrated network of LRT, BRT, Commuter Rail, GCC Rail and guided bus and micromobility infrastructure connects these nodes and the communities that grow between them.

Between the anchor nodes, the plan introduces the fifteen-minute neighbourhood as the organising unit of residential life: walkable, mixed-use communities where services, green space and transit are accessible without a private car. This directly challenges the low-density villa expansion that has shaped Muscat's outward growth for decades and provides a new rationale for density, investment and community life across the city.

Design guidelines reinterpret Oman's vernacular architectural heritage through materiality, courtyard typologies, shaded street sections and human-scaled massing, ensuring new development is rooted in its context rather than imported from elsewhere. The city's wadi systems, long treated as a flood hazard, are repositioned as civic assets, forming the backbone of an integrated network of parks, ecology and landscape-led flood management.

The plan was shaped by a major programme of evidence gathering and community engagement. More than 3,000 documents were reviewed, 4.2 terabytes of data were coordinated through GIS systems and more than 4,000 residents contributed to the process.

Broadway Malyan led a multidisciplinary international team with F&M Middle East as local contract holder, alongside Cundall, MIC-HUB, Pegasys, PAL, OTU, JLL, Kennedys, Brash Wiedemann Lampe and Fifth Estate.

Image credits: Oman Ministry of Housing and Urban Planning