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Buying (into) sustainability
Published in Federico Caprotti, Li Yu, Sustainable Cities in Asia, 2017
Another initiative undertaken by UPC is that of creating the Estidama code for sustainable building practices. The code awards points for environmentally friendly measures adopted in villas, multi-story buildings and in community plans. All new developments must receive at least the lowest ‘pearl rating’ (1 pearl) by accumulating these points. The code, by all accounts, has been implemented strictly. The Estidama pearl-rating system is commendable for its vision and scope. It shows that the government is serious about green building, and is willing to implement quickly an adapted version of LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) standards for the Emirati context. The adaptation was certainly necessary because the climatic conditions and geographic characteristics of the desert create some very specific building and community planning requirements to ensure sustainability.
Quantitative analysis of sustainable housing energy systems based on Estidama pearl rating system
Published in International Journal of Green Energy, 2018
Abdalla Mahmoud Salim, Saleh Abu Dabous
Significant energy conservation can be achieved by implementing efficient energy systems in buildings and using sustainable energy sources (Assaf and Nour 2014). As a result, energy requirements of buildings have received special attention in the UAE resulted in launching two main green building rating systems, namely: Estidama Pearl Rating System of Abu Dhabi, and Al Safat Rating System of Dubai in 2010 and 2016, respectively. Estidama is an Arabic word which means sustainability and this rating system is the first of its kind in the Middle East, focusing the sustainability requirements through the three stages of a project: design, construction, and operation (Estidama 2010). Assaf and Nour (2014) reported that Abu Dhabi Urban Planning Council conducted studies on applying resourceful energy requirements and measuring the environmental and cost impacts. A One Pearl rated villa (minimum rating level in the Pearl Villa Rating System) was expected to achieve almost 31% reduction in energy use. This reduction came from cooling load reduction due to efficiency improvements through using better insulation elements in the building envelope as well as using more productive cooling units. The remaining savings came from utilizing efficient lighting systems and supplying the hot water demand from renewable energy sources.
What happened to Abu Dhabi’s urbanism? The question of regional integration
Published in Journal of Urban Design, 2018
Khaled Alawadi, Ouafa Benkraouda
Estidama focuses on four pillars of sustainability ‒ environment, economy, society, and culture ‒ and was introduced in the form of a regulatory code in hope that it would facilitate the development of a sustainable city and society. However, Cugurullo (2016, 5) argued that this initiative relied on green technology and economics more than anything else and that “sustainability has emerged mostly as a label: an empty label employed by stakeholders to cover ecologically unfriendly economic objectives and business [political] interests”. However, as an evaluation tool, Estidama focuses attention on the building and parcel level, touching slightly on the community scale and public realm. Even Estidama’s criterion of Regionally Responsive Planning,3 which in theory should encourage region-friendly design and planning, is more focused on reflecting a generic ideology of attention to “the unique climatic, social and historical influences of the site and region in the community plan” (Estidama 2010).
Rethinking suburban design: streets v/s alleys in improving network connectivity
Published in Journal of Urban Design, 2021
Khaled Alawadi, Asim Khanal, Sara Al Hinai
The results from the PRD test always produce values greater than or equal to one. Greater connectivity is indicated when the score is lower; at the lowest possible score of 1.0, the actual distance is equal to straight-line distance ‘as the crow flies’ (Dill 2004). The PRD test requires the researcher to set a threshold such that all plots in the study either pass or fail based on the obtained PRD values. For this study, a threshold of 1.5 was selected for the PRD test. In this test, plots with values below 1.5 are considered to have efficient access to their surroundings, while plots with values above this threshold are not. With a threshold of 1.5, routes up to 50% longer than the straight-line distance would pass the PRD test. Previous studies in the U.S. have noted that PRD values around 1.6 and higher are characteristic of suburban developments and neighbourhoods with poorly connected streets. By contrast, an average PRD value between 1.3 and 1.4 is associated with connected, gridiron street systems (Hess 1997; Randall and Baetz 2001). Studies of street connectivity in suburban developments have adopted both 1.5 (Clapp 2009) and 1.6 (Hess et al. 1999; Zhou and Xu 2020) as PRD threshold values. The article used the stricter value of 1.5 because of the UAE’s hot and humid climate and because the analysis involved neighbourhoods whose street layouts and designs vary widely and include gridiron, fragmented parallels, looping, and cul-de-sac layouts. A threshold value of 1.5 is used not only in the scholarly literature, but also by Abu Dhabi’s Department of Municipalities and Transport (DMT) in its assessments of street network efficiency (Scoppa, Bawazir, and Alawadi 2019). Abu Dhabi’s DMT is guided by Estidama (‘sustainability’ in Arabic), the Middle East’s first rating and guiding system for sustainability. Estidama ranks construction and planning projects using a Community Rating System, which is designed to guide sustainable urban development across its life cycle, from design to construction to operation.