The Jordan Food and Drug Administration (JFDA) announced plans to ban the use of plastic bags starting next year. The ruling also applies to plastic containers that come in direct contact with food products (think take-away and deli counter sales).
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An energy-efficient house in Barwa City, Qatar will be put through its paces to see if it can perform to computer-modeled expectations. We first visited the idea of Passivhaus in 2012, but much has progressed in making a new energy efficient standard green building for hot climates.
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Thousands of folding glass panels cover the southern facade of the Al Bahr Towers in Abu Dhabi (above). Reacting to sunlight, they form a protective skin to decrease interior solar gain. It’s a modern riff on the best known element of Arabic architecture, in play since the Middle Ages. Meet the modern mashrabiya.
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What’s the best way to get a nation of increasingly obese residents to embrace a healthier life? Host a World Cup and build a bunch of awesome sports clubs. Having secured 2022, the Qatar Olympic Committee has now commissioned Grimshaw Architects to install green recreational facilities throughout the emirate.
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Qatar Solar Energy has unveiled a massive factory that will produce high quality solar panels that make the most of the desert sun, a boon not just for the emirate, but potentially for the entire Middle East.
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The 2012 winners of a competition with a cringe-inducing name teamed up with a powerhouse plumbing manufacturer to design a self-contained restroom that could be deployed anywhere – it doesn’t require plumbing infrastructure or connection to a power grid!
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Qatar plans to spend roughly $200 billion to prepare for the hundreds of thousands of fans who are expected to show up for the 2022 World Cup – a sum that appears to be four stadiums more than the Emirate can afford.
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Want to see a city on “speed” grow? This time lapse video captures Doha as it expands rapidly for the 2022 World Cup in soccer.
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An all-women team of Qatari students won the first GCC hybrid electric vehicle competition held in Abu Dhabi over the weekend. Showing some serious girl power, Gernas 114 from Qatar University beat 10 other teams to become the 2014 TAQA GCC Hybrid-Electric Challenge champions.
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There was great hullabaloo when The Shard was completed just one year ago. Not only was it financed by Qatar, but the 306 meter tower was said to have ruined the London neighborhood in which it was built. Now Renzo Piano has been commissioned to give the skyscraper a neighbor.
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Three years ago, Qatar won the right to be the first Middle Eastern country to host a World Cup in 2022; after much speculation, FIFA’s Secretary General Jerome Valcke publicly ruled out the possibility that the competition will take place in summer. Since winning the bid with designs of spectacular solar-powered stadiums, the Emirate has insisted […]
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We’re not the biggest fans of all the Middle East’s skyscrapers – the Burj Khalifa, the Kingdom Tower coming to Saudi and other soaring glass towers, because of their high environmental impact. Which is why we got such a kick out of these awesome candles from China.
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Renowned architect Santiago Calatrava, who is most famous for his spectacular bridges, has unveiled a radical new design for three bridges and an elevated park that will completely transform Doha’s skyline in time for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
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Qatar is spending billions of dollars to prepare for the 2022 World Cup and some of that money will be used to expand Al Dhakira, a coastal city just 37 miles outside of the capital Doha that has protected mangrove forests to the north and south.
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Living large isn’t sustainable, at least that is what most green hearts tend to believe, but Sanzpont Arquitectura disagrees. Invited to participate in an international competition to design a private residence in Qatar, the studio came up with ‘A Palace for Nature’ – a magnificent solar-powered palace modeled after the sidra tree.
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