Spotlight on green construction designs at Cityscape 2008

Countries like the UAE are looking to encourage quality building and better management practices - currently there are over 250 projects that include LEED certified technologies right from the initial stages across of development.

"Local developers and buyers are becoming increasingly sophisticated in their knowledge of green technologies and are looking to adopt sustainable alternatives that suit regional resources and climatic conditions,"

commented Professor Bassam Abu Hijleh, Atkins Senior Lecturer, The British University in Dubai (BUiD).

"Part of the growing sophistication across the construction industry includes a demand for better asset management and better practices."

Dubai is looking considering mandatory requirements for new buildings to abide to the LEED Building Rating System.

Cityscape 2008 offers cutting edge technologies and new research from international experts including seminars on smart buildings and green buildings strategies.

Local research is also being encouraged to discover and evaluate the most efficient resources and techniques that maximise both green construction, cost feasibility and comfort.

As part of its commitment to lead research based education in the UAE, BUiD encourages students to study developing trends in technologies in the UAE and publish credited findings and primary research to regional industry professionals.

Earlier this year, at a prestigious conference in Abu Dhabi, Dr. Bassam Abu-Hijleh demonstrated two methods for ensuring that buildings could be cooled without the negative environmental impacts of conventional air conditioning.

For Dr. Bassam, his analytical and numerical modelling analysis marks a further development in the ongoing efforts of The British University in Dubai (BUiD) - the Middle East's first research-based postgraduate university - to deliver a Masters Degree in the Sustainable Design of the Built Environment capable of meeting the needs of young architects and project managers.

Abu Hijleh added:

"The primary reason for this shift toward sustainable construction is that developers now understand that early inclusion of green technology results in almost no extra cost at the end of the project."

In two stand-out presentations among the seven dozen papers on offer, Dr. Bassam's applied research distilled the experience of several recent Atkins projects to put the case for greener high-rise buildings, highlighting the use of new technologies. Each paper advocated tailored solutions for specific buildings, by responding to different energy requirement with designs based upon a building's specific needs.

With Dubai and Abu Dhabi in the process of setting up green buildings codes, developers and buyers are looking to educate senior architects and project management on methods available to reduce the impact of the environmental footprint caused by the UAE's construction boom.

Dr. Bassam has helped to develop BUiD's MSc Sustainable Design of the Built Environment programme, available in full- and part-time study modes. Given the pressing need for postgraduate-level training in order to prepare local practitioners for their respective professions, BUiD - unusually in local higher education - allows students to conclude their Masters Degrees with a work-based research project.