When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990 a massive infrastructure project in the capital’s green belt was halted and the area’s park was left a construction site. “When the park reopened it never had the same relation to the city,” says Ricardo Camacho, a Portuguese landscape designer who was enlisted by the emir of Kuwait’s office in 2011 to help revitalise Al Shaheed Park.

Phase two of the project was delivered in April and now it comprises swathes of greenery, jogging paths, two museums and an amphitheatre. “The vision was to offer people an alternative to shopping malls and for the park to be as permeable as possible,” says Camacho, adding that it also acts as a transition from the downtown to the city’s periphery. The plan is to reclaim some of Kuwait City’s green belt as part of an effort to reconnect with a time before the Gulf War. “Rehabilitation is at the core of the agenda,” says Camacho.

The oily waters off Port Harcourt in the Niger Delta may seem an unusual place for an innovative media outfit. Yet film-maker Michael Uwemedimo’s Chicoco Radio – comprising a radio station, recording studios and cinema – looks to enable the city’s poorer residents to tell their stories, especially as many face eviction as the slums are erased to make way for upscale housing.

Currently in temporary digs, Chicoco will eventually move into a striking cantilevered building see-sawing into the creek, with a lower end floating on the water. Designed by Kunlé Adeyemi of nlé in Amsterdam, it echoes his award-winning floating school built in Lagos lagoon.

More than 4,000 cars make the two-hour journey from Dubai to Abu Dhabi every day, snarling up streets on both sides of the highway. The uae has enlisted Elon Musk’s Tesla to develop a Hyperloop between the cities, promising to whizz people across the Emirates in a breakneck 12 minutes. But given this technology is still far from being realised, the problem isn’t going to be fixed soon.

The uae should opt for the simpler solution of using rolling stock. Dubai already has metro and tram networks, which could plug neatly into a sleek rail link with Abu Dhabi.