Here in Amman, Jordan, personal mail gets delivered painfully slow to post office boxes rarely filled. My banking and bill-paying happens online and does anyone receive letters anymore? Recall those handwritten messages slipped into envelopes and slapped with a pretty stamp? There’s a paradox afoot that might bring them back from extinction.
Albeit better than neighboring Dubai’s skyline of what renowned architect Frank Gehry calls “cheap” and “anonymous” architecture, Abu Dhabi has grown into a dense urban environment with precious few green spaces. The municipality aims to rectify that, however, starting with a 19,000 square foot green-roofed “urban oasis.”
Amid the snipers, the rubble and the misery on many Syrian streets is another ugly phenomenon: garbage. In Adel’s* hometown of Janoub al Malaab, a district of Hama city, piles of waste give off an odour that is nearly unbearable.
The United Nations has warned that the Gaza Strip, the small slice of land bordering Egypt and Israel that has been the scene of so much political tension, could be “uninhabitable” as soon as 2016 if serious action isn’t taken to address a chronic water shortage, The Independent reports. If that happens, where will its […]
Life on the streets has never been easy for stray animals, especially in the Middle East where animals are often targets. There are stray dogs that get shot dead in Lebanon and stray dogs that kicked around in Jordan.
Negev Energy, the new partnership between the Spanish and Israeli companies, will build and operate the 110 MW Parabolic Trough plant under a 25 year power purchase agreement. The energy they produce will sell for NIS0.76 per kilowatt hour, or $0.21.
More setbacks for Middle East solar or the only way a big dream can move ahead? DESERTEC has canceled its commercial partnership to build a solar super-grid with Dii GmbH, according to a press release issued by DESERTEC.
The world’s first tablet cafe has opened in Dakar and already Google’s latest experiment is turning out to be a major game changer. Bordered by Mauritania and Mali in West Africa, Senegal battles with frequent power outages and sluggish internet connections that cut into any cyber cafe’s bottom line, but tablets circumvent both problems.
Lady’s Fingers – a poetic name for a day-to-day vegetable, also known as okra. Maybe the lovely pale yellow flower sheds a little poetry over the seed pod that grows out of its heart, and which we eat as a vegetable. In the Middle East, we call it bameeyah.
Pollution of fresh water supplies in large Asian countries is becoming more and more serious due to increasing populations and rapid industrialization. This is especially true in countries like India, where it’s largest river system, the Ganges, is one of the world’s most polluted. China, the world’s most populated in now in serious “water” trouble. […]
Imagine trash and sewage filling six Olympic-size pools. Can you smell it? Now drain them into Kidron Valley which separates East and West Jerusalem, abutting their holiest sites. It’s a revolting image and annual reality: those pools are fantasy, but the waste is not.
Zaha Hadid’s flowing architecture instantly sprung to mind when we came across Zaid Bin Talib’s design proposal for an Iraqi embassy in Oslo. Daring, futuristic, and swooping, the design appears to be influenced by Iraq’s most famous architect’s style, except the Oslo School of Architecture and Design student’s work is so much greener.
Pablo Picasso once said, “The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls.” So, it’s off to the art galleries all you in Abu Dhabi: your meteorological agencies are warning of epic dust storms ahead.
Meet Elif Bilgin, the latest in a string of wunderkids from the Middle East and North Africa, who invented a bioplastic made from banana peels.
Design is an often overlooked aspect of any social protest movement, but the organic nature of its occurrence is of great interest to the Turkish collective Herkes İçin Mimarlık. Translated as Architecture for All, this group collected photos of shelters built from scrap materials during Turkey’s recent uprising and then made drawings of them.