Looks like Dubai 2K12 is off.

In an email sent to students in the “Senior Project Design Studio,” this morning, Tom Zook, one of the studio’s professors, announced that the trip had been cancelled due to uncertainty about the competition’s legitimacy. The competition, it turns out, is not sanctioned by Wild Wadi Water Park, Zook said in his email.The details of this scandal are still unclear, Zook said. For now, though, the water slides will have to wait.

But the professors were quick to find another trip. The studio will now participate in the 2012 Land Art Generator Initiative design competition, which asks participants to design a “site-specific public artwork that, in addition to its conceptual beauty, has the ability to harness energy cleanly from nature and convert it to electricity for the utility grid” in New York City’s Freshkills Park. The winner will receive $20,000.

Zook explained that the class would still travel on the same dates — Jan. 26 to Jan. 30 — to see other “large-scale Land Art projects” in the West. The probable destination? Las Vegas.