It is almost certain that a new green wall installed in Kuwait is the emirate’s very first. The 175 square foot vertical garden was installed in The Avenue Mall’s West Elm store to mark the first time the American furnishings company has opened an international branch. Featuring resilient plants as diverse as Dracaena, White Butterfly, […]
Whether your sandy reminiscences are wet or dry, two artists have devised ways to make your memories tangible. My brain inextricably links sand to sea thanks to 25 summers spent on a New Jersey barrier island. Middle East experiences have me now connecting the grainy stuff to locations and memories largely devoid of water, such […]
A poisonous snake bit a man on a flight from Cairo to Kuwait, forcing the pilot to make an emergency landing. A Jordanian passenger who owns a reptile shop in Kuwait smuggled the Egyptian Cobra into his carry-on luggage (a baksheesh or bribe would have made the snake invisible to the Egypt Air security personnel […]
For such a tiny nation, Kuwait produces some of the world’s highest per capita amounts of trash Rubbish may not be the glamorous topic to think about but it is probably the most relatable. We all throw out trash such as packaging which only seems to serve us momentarily or food which wasn’t eaten in time. […]
Seed money up to $1 million to protect your local birds. Apply today. Sick of reading about Cyprus songbirds killed and pickled for snacks? Weary of wild killing sprees like Egypt’s sanctioned bird hunt ? Or maybe the downed flamingos in Kuwait ruffled your feathers? BirdLife International has created a fund to underwrite environmental preservation projects in one of the […]
Kuwait is making its debut at the 13th Venice Biennale this year, and they’re doing so with some serious style. The pavilion features a cavernous industrial space interrupted with dangling speakers, orange cushions and abandoned master plans, and it was commissioned by the National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters (NCAA). Unlike many of the […]
Alzainah Albabtain, a 22 year old student, is growing her own food in the scorching heat of Kuwait and wants others to give it go too A green fingered student from Kuwait is taking the blogosphere by storm with her ‘It All Grows’ blog. Filled to the rafters with gorgeous photos of lovely fruit and […]
Find out how Middle Eastern and North African nations fared in the recent global Ocean Health Index (I’ll give you a clue – not very well) With a recent Greenpeace report urging action to tackle the toxicity of Lebanon’s waters due to trash, now seems the perfect time to look into the health of the […]
Iranians may have turned to aubergines due to chicken shortages – but the world over may be forced to go vegetarian due to food shortages in the next 40 years According to the latest findings, the world’s population may have to switch almost completely to a vegetarian diet over the next 40 years to avoid […]
What can Islam do for the environment? That’s a question I have been asking myself for some years now and, in all honestly, I am nowhere near answering it fully. I have definitely enjoyed looking into the green ethics of Islam in a bid to help Muslims worldwide take up the environmentally-friendly path, but I […]
Step back, LEED. Back off, BREEAM. Easy there, Estidama: Qatar’s developing a new building standard and it’s called GSAS. Qatar’s revamped its QSAS green building rating system. Re-launched under a new name, the Global Sustainability Assessment System (GSAS) is muscling in as Middle East- North Africa’s green standard. Developed by the Gulf Organization for Research and […]
Kuwait is planning to build a city in the desert for 2,500 residents, and the Sabah Al-Ahmad Culture Center will be its nucleus. Albeit materially extravagant, BDP. has proposed a design that takes energy conservation very seriously. And in this relentlessly hot and humid seaside environment along the Gulf, that won’t be easy. Integrated with photovoltaic […]
Green Prophet’s reports on happenings in the Gulf region have increasingly been using the acronym GCC, which stands for Gulf Cooperation Council. Perhaps a bit of an explanation is in order. GCC is a political and economic alliance between Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar and Saudi Arabia (KSA). It was formed in 1981 following […]
The Kuwaiti-Spanish Architecture firm AGi scooped two coveted awards at the International Property Award held in Burj Al-Arab, Dubai. In addition to being recognized for its Wafra Living Complex, the firm’s experimental Wafra Wind Tower project has received the Best Architecture Multiple Residence Award. A Google and Bloomberg TV channel collaborative, the International Property Award […]
I know I know, the proposed federation of six gulf countries has nothing to do with anything remotely green. I also realize that the ulterior motive is to gain political strength and stability in the region and it is possible that this may even escalate the unrest, given that not everyone is happy with this […]