IN-PERSON Barcelona. Section B

Abstract

How does one build in the desert during an era of the climate crisis and with the challenges posed by a post-carbon future? A new generation of architectural works in the United Arab Emirates celebrates desert life’s natural dynamics and cultural richness with novel spatial ideas melded with energy mediation and adaptation. We pay particular attention to construction techniques in recent projects by three international firms. The Dar al Mafaeda School and a family compound by RCR Arquitectes take cues from age-old ways of building, where dwelling in the desert relied on indigenous passive control systems that evolved with the resources at hand. State-of-the-art technologies and the principles of the circular economy guide a new aesthetic of energy design in Zaha Hadid Architects’ Bee’ah Group Headquarters, where form serves as an interface between human activity and the environment. Ecological tourism of desert geology, flora, and fauna takes center stage in two publicly commissioned interpretative centers, the Buhais Geological Park and the Khor Kalba Turtle and Wildlife Sanctuary by Hopkins Architects. These projects take inspiration from the sinuous formation of dunes to construct buildings and landscapes as unified wholes. Responsive to the complex differentiated desert environment, the architects offer a departure from the predominance of globalized building forms unrelated to local climate patterns and traditions but long associated with the region’s construction boom. At a moment of resurgent interest in desert ecologies, the poetics of placemaking and the material choices in these works reinforce regional identity.