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Posts tagged dubai
The Sustainable Desert Paradox // MASDAR City
The Sustainable Desert Paradox // MASDAR City

As exotic as the desert is, alluding to the mystical tales of Arabian Nights, a sustainable carbon-neutral project is certainly not the first thing one would associate with the landscape of folding sand dunes. To heighten the paradox, carbon neutrality is certainly not associated with a city which has grown wealthy from exporting black gold. Indeed cheap oil has facilitated urban sprawl across the United Arab Emirates and accounts for 70% of the nation’s gross domestic product (Crot, 2013, p. 2812; Reiche, 2010, p. 378). The newly completed Masdar City, designed by Foster + Partners therefore stands as a hopeful testament against all the stereotypes we have placed upon the Arabian Gulf.

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Sustainability, ArchitectsHugo Chanarchitecture, design, normanfoster, sustainability, masdar, dubai
Unintended Consequences // The Artificial Islands of Dubai
Unintended Consequences // The Artificial Islands of Dubai

We often think that our small day to day habits and actions have no direct impacts on the environment. When compounded however, as this image above which caught my attention shows, our scale of impacts increases, our unintended consequences may magnify and prove to be far more unpredictable, as seen in the case of Dubai’s many artificial shoreline and island projects.

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SustainabilityHugo Chanarchitecture, design, sustainability, dubai
Vertical Vanity
Vertical Vanity

The emergent economies of the world are urbanising and developing at a rate unprecedented in human history and as such, they have sought new monuments to solidify their place in this brave new world. It has been clear that in the last thirty years, there has been “the increasing trend towards extreme spires and other extensions of tall buildings that do not enclose usable space” (CTBUH, 2013). The recently completed Burj Kalifa standing with a total height of 828 metres has a vanity height of 244 metres, 29% of the building is in fact unusable space devoted solely to achieving the height (CTBUH, 2013).

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SustainabilityHugo Chanarchitecture, dubai, vanity, design, sustainability
All that Glitters is not Green
All that Glitters is not Green

Sustainability is undoubtedly the word of our times. Everywhere we go, we hear of strives being taken to limit emissions, to improve living and to live without compromising the needs of future generations. Within architecture and building however, a new paradox has arisen, identified by prominent architectural writer, Peter Buchanan. In his 2011-2012 series, The Big Rethink, he posited that sustainability cannot fundamentally be achieved with current practice in architecture because Modernism is fundamentally “an energy-profligate, petrochemical architecture, only possible when fossil fuels are abundant and affordable.” (Buchanan, 2012)

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SustainabilityHugo Chanarchitecture, design, sustainability, green, glitter, dubai, dubious