Brian argues that skyscrapers are not only “un-green,” but they could be a precursor to economic turmoil. The Empire State Building was completed in 1931, the same year E.Y. “Yip” Harburg wrote these lyrics: “Once I built a tower up…
Islamic architects piped sunlight into homes using star-shaped skylights but Brian and his wife installed Solotubes. One of the first changes my wife and I made to our house was to install a Solotube in the kitchen. This device consists…
The LEED-hopeful Siemens headquarters in Masdar City has been awarded the coveted 2012 MIPIM future projects award. It wasn’t long ago that the first batch of photographs depicting the new Siemens headquarters made its way through the virtual world, but…
Going green doesn’t come naturally to wealthy villa owners in the Gulf. An online real estate company listed a seven bedroom villa in Dubai’s neighboring Emirate Abu Dhabi for $95,300 a year, which amounts to nearly $8,000 a month. Anyone…
eL Seed, a Tunisian artist who combines Arabic calligraphy and street painting, is making an imprint on the world street art scene. I can’t remember how I found him. One of those idle internet ramblings where a sound or image…
Open only six weeks each year, Hajj Terminal is rated one of the world’s best and busiest. Dozens of gleaming white tents form a bold roofline covering 120 acres of passenger services; sustainable magnificence created by visionary architects Skidmore, Owings…
Studio Schiattarella and Tecturae’s winning proposal for the Celebration Hall of Riyadh distorts true Bedouin values. It is common in Middle Eastern design to evoke images of a more sustainable past in order to justify a less sustainable present, and…
It’s official: Zaha Hadid is going to design the new Central Bank of Iraq’s Headquarters; Tafline argues that it should be green. Zaha Hadid is widely celebrated for her incredible, untethered design, but less so for her environmental sensibilities. So…
A green shopping mall is not green if its AC sounds like a jet liner taking off When previous articles of making shopping malls more sustainable and green, such as Amman Jordan’s new Mega Mall, were posted, it appeared that…
The Bedouins are a group of skaters and artists who are empowering post-revolutinary Tunisian youth. When Nathan Gray and his posse of skateboarders and street artists collectively known as “The Bedouins” were scouting out the perfect place to build a…
