Kettle Collective has kicked off 2017 with a series of Friday Forum talks. This is a platform for our team, and invited guests, to share ideas, techniques, or simply to present something interesting.
An opportunity to learn, discuss, and build presentation skills, participation in this forum is an opportunity to encourage creative thinking, and improve our practices.
Kate Shirkina has begun our 2017 series with her talk on “Sustainable practices in Middle Eastern high-rise structures”.
In different parts of the world there are different ways of making architecture sustainable. This happens due to different climate conditions, social aspects, economical situation, etc. When I was looking for the precedent projects in Middle East I noticed that most of them were focused on reducing solar heat gain. And this is not a surprise. In such a hot climate you can save a lot of energy on cooling the construction by simply limiting the exposure of the building to sun. We examined many projects that employ the idea of a 'double skin' facade. In one case architects were inspired by local mashrabiya and created shading screen of lattice work, in another used adjustable shades that responded to the movement of sun, in the third made a second concrete facade with over 1000 circular openings. Interestingly in their attempts to make buildings more environmentally friendly architects managed to create unique and outstanding designs. These precedents show that actually sustainable architecture not only can offer huge space for creativity but also in some cases leads to the birth of a special remarkable project.
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