A new female starchitect on the rise? BM Studios is an architectural firm bridging the East and the West. In this article, Balsam Madi shares her approach to climate sensitive design and discusses the role of architects today.

In the UAE, architects often have more influence than they realize, particularly at the early, conceptual stages of a project. How do they weigh that responsibility? How is the role of architects today influencing climate sensitive design? We speak with Balsam Madi from BM Studios to learn more.

Architectural teams are typically structured into distinct roles as concept architects, design development teams, specifiers, and project managers. But these roles frequently operate in silos, especially within large corporations, she tells Green Prophet.

Design managers, who liaise across teams and maintain continuity, are still relatively rare. This hierarchy has a direct impact on sustainability outcomes, notes the young, aspirational architect working between Berlin and Dubai at the firm she founded, BM Studios.

In Balsam’s former role as a senior lead designer at KEO, sustainability was not an add-on, she says, it was embedded in her responsibility. She was expected to introduce cultural research, emerging design trends, sustainable strategies, and even AI-driven methodologies into the workflow. Knowledge transfer was central to her role: staying ahead of global conversations and translating them into locally relevant design decisions.

Sustainability entered most powerfully during the concept phase, which she was leading, through storytelling. She reinterpreted vernacular architectural techniques using contemporary aesthetics that clients respond to today, while quietly embedding passive strategies, climate intelligence, and material efficiency. Referencing comparable cities and precedents helped position sustainability not as a risky experiment, but as a proven and aspirational solution.

She also naturally stepped into a design management role, coordinating day-to-day processes, aligning design development teams, specifications, and material research. Early decisions around modularity, prefabrication, and low-impact construction often made the biggest difference, long before sustainability became a checklist. This coordination allowed quality assurance throughout costing and specification stages—precisely where silos often form and opportunities for design integrity and sustainability are lost.

As independent practitioners, architects become translators, strategists, and sometimes marketeers of sustainability, not superficially, but by demonstrating how responsible design enhances value, longevity, and relevance.

After leaving the corporate world and working independently, she found more freedom to advocate for these ideas, she tells Green Prophet. As independent practitioners, architects become translators, strategists, and sometimes marketeers of sustainability, not superficially, but by demonstrating how responsible design enhances value, longevity, and relevance. They are expected to do it all!

Over the next decade, architects who can bridge vision, systems, and persuasion will shape the industry far more than those focused on form alone, she says. Having knowledge about LEED-building, or Estidama Pearls isn’t enough.

Where Architects Truly Influence Sustainability

Landscape design for a private Dubai client. Balsam Madi.

Architects genuinely influence sustainability at three critical points: concept design, advisory roles, and spatial intelligence. The greatest constraint, however, remains resistance to change.

Balsam once proposed a flexible housing strategy inspired by open-building principles and early Japanese residential models, homes designed to evolve with families rather than forcing families to adapt to rigid layouts. The concept was profitable, socially progressive, and sustainable, yet it was not well received. The real estate sector, despite its creative veneer, often prefers familiarity over innovation.

Some of her most successful sustainability-driven typologies—projects that doubled developer yields—were led by developers who were architects themselves. Leadership mindset matters. Sustainability is not just about trees or technology; it’s about designing spaces that perform socially, economically, and environmentally over decades.

Cultural constraints also play a role. Ambition in the Middle East region is high, but often paired with impatience. Limited time for research, testing, and long-term planning undermines sustainable outcomes. Developers who have truly excelled invested in R&D and allowed innovation to mature, positioning themselves with distinct value propositions.

Architects also influence sustainability through advisory work: optimizing layouts for waste management, connecting developers with recycling or composting partners, and improving operational efficiency through better planning. These opportunities are frequently missed, often due to a narrow procurement mindset focused on either lowest cost or premium solutions, with little space in between.

Quality is another issue. First-time developers sometimes hire very young firms to reduce costs, resulting in poor layouts and dysfunctional living spaces. Sustainability, at its core, is systems thinking. When treated as isolated gestures rather than an integrated framework, it loses both meaning and impact.

From Designing Form to Designing Systems

Balsam says she loves concept design, “the iterative process, the moment when an idea clicks and demands to be built. That creative spark is sacred. But today, AI can generate iterations faster than entire teams once could. This raises an important question: if machines can explore form, what is the architect’s true value?

“For me, the answer is systems thinking and orchestration. Architecture is no longer about isolated objects; it’s about aligning structure, MEP, HVAC, materials, construction sequencing, and long-term operation from day one. Certifications like LEED touch on this, but the principle runs deeper. Designing holistically from the start avoids waste, redesign, and inefficiency later.

“One of my engineering management professors once said architects are ‘artists with rulers’ and ‘conductors of the construction orchestra.’ We don’t play every instrument, but we understand how they work together. That ability to coordinate, adapt, and guide is irreplaceable.

“This is why my practice spans architecture, interiors, landscape, and product design. Design is a universal language. If you can take an idea from concept to execution in one medium, you can do it in many. The future architect is a systems leader, strategist, and coach—someone who maintains the big picture while navigating complexity with clarity,” she tells Green Prophet.

“As a result, I developed a sustainability arm within my practice that connects businesses, end users, and service providers working on sustainable products. This includes integrating sustainable MEP systems and sensors into high-end heritage spaces—design work that is less conceptual and more coordination-driven, yet increasingly in demand as architecture moves beyond a unilateral definition.

Climate, Materials, and the UAE Context

If you are developing a dream in the UAE, “the biggest challenges in the UAE are climate and infrastructure, particularly mobility,” says Balsam.  “While Dubai’s metro is efficient, many communities lack shaded walkways, green corridors, and pedestrian-friendly design. This disproportionately affects lower-income areas and creates daily stress.”

Materially, many buildings are not designed for long-term exposure to heat and humidity, she notes. “Façades and systems often deteriorate within 20 years, reducing value and increasing vacancy. Rather than resisting the region’s appetite for renovation, we should specify materials with strong life-cycle performance, recyclability, and adaptability. Outdoor construction, in particular, needs stricter material guidelines. Initiatives like Colab in D3 advocate for sustainable material use, but ultimately this requires leadership-level commitment.

“Too often, sustainability manifests as confusion at the operational level and box-ticking at the corporate level. When it becomes jargon detached from empathy and responsibility, it loses credibility. Real change starts with environmental literacy and a shared sense of stewardship for place.”

Beyond Ratings: An Ethical Foundation

Balsam tells us, that there is a growing disconnect between global sustainability agendas and on-the-ground impact. While conferences consume enormous budgets, grassroots sustainability startups, the true innovators, often struggle to survive without access to capital.

Certifications and data have their place, she says, but when sustainability becomes bookkeeping rather than belief, skepticism follows, particularly around topics like Net Zero. “An ethical, zero-harm intention recenters sustainability around empathy—toward nature, communities, and future generations.

“When intention leads, capital can be distributed more holistically, allowing ecosystems to thrive across all roles, from change-makers to policymakers.”

About Balsam Madi, Founder of BM Studios

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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. 

Doha is getting exactly what it wanted when it made its bid for various international events: a lot of exposure. Most people will struggle to place Qatar’s capital on a map, but compelling time lapse videos like this and other marketing campaigns leading up to the 2022 World Cup will eventually make the emirate a household name.

Michael Shainblum has done a remarkable job of making Doha look like the world’s most enticing city with and for Zoom Arts.

A pulsing soundtrack adds dimension to a dynamic survey of such fixtures as souqs and mosques and ancient forts, while sublime footage of modern life in the oil-rich city makes traffic look incredibly glamorous.

It really is quite intoxicating – the city skyline somehow exudes more sophistication than its cousin of excess Dubai, which has forever sealed its fate as an oversized novelty store with developments such as the curious ‘Aladdin City’ complex currently underway in Dubai Creek.

Related: local architect questions the logic of Qatar’s 2020 World Cup

Shainblum impressively resists the impulse to only represent stereotypical Doha by showing less glamorous parts of the city – such as its mammoth oil refineries, but he does pull off what amounts to a moving monument to globalization and “progress.”

The glittering towers demonstrate great wealth, while construction zones remind the viewer of what an extraordinary metamorphosis the city must undergo in order to prepare for the huge influx of soccer fans that are expected in 2022.

While it is clear to anyone who reads the news that we need to make some very real societal changes, that the rapid growth development model based on more consumption of finite resources is simply unsustainable, this time-lapse is professional, exciting and deserves to widely celebrated.

An expert blend of old and new Doha, Welcome to Doha is a reminder that the Arabian Peninsula has its finger on the pulse of the world’s most cutting edge technology, ideas and marketing savvy.

If you have any doubt, check out what happens after 2:20.

:: Sploid Gizmodo

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Dubai and other Gulf cities have grown up so fast. Once empty tracts of vast desert land have been replaced with row after row of tall, glass clad buildings – many of which are unoccupied.

Gone are the simple days of subsistence fishing and pearl diving. Now we have air-conditioned shopping malls and fancy gold-plated cars (even if they are biodiesel.) And we’re alone in our nostalgia for the “good old days.”

Beijing has gone through a similar transformation.

There are at least as many towers dominating the Chinese capital as Dubai’s and Doha’s, including the world’s second tallest tower – the Shanghai World Financial Center, and one artist is so tired of the change, she designed a series of tower-shaped candles just so that she could watch them burn down.

In addition to creating replicas of Doha’s Palm and Aspire Towers, Jing Jing Naihan Li, who has worked with renowned architects Ai WeiWei and OMA in the past, designed models of several American and Chinese skyscrapers as well.

It took the artist two years to design and mould the candles, which are each one foot tall, and were originally unveiled at Beijing Design Week in 2012.

“I’m tired of modernity,” Naihan told Bundshop, an online website that sells the candles. “I like watching these buildings burn and melt into artistic pieces. I light these for fun, I think I’ve burnt 20 sets just myself.”

If you’re also tired of modernity and would like to see Doha’s Palm or Aspire Tower burn to the ground, you can, but it’s going to cost you!

The minimum selling price for these skyscraper candles is $39, though the more elaborate models are pricier, but we must say, it’s better to burn one of them down than it is to set alight the real thing!

:: Gizmodo

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The Qatar Foundation is distinguishing itself as a leader at Greenbuild, the world’s largest gathering of green building pioneers in Philadelphia, where Hilary Clinton will deliver the 2013 keynote address tomorrow.

The Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development chaired by Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser Al Missned has been instrumental in alleviating Qatar’s dependence on carbon by developing its knowledge economy.

In part, the group has done so by building a 14 square kilometer educational complex just outside of the capital Doha. Education City boasts eight international satellite university campuses, as well as the new Hamad bin Khalifa University (HBKU).

And this is where there “green” expertise has emerged.

In addition to building an innovative “people-mover” system comprised of e-bikes and Avenio trams from Siemens, the group is in the process of constructing one of the largest collection of LEED Platinum buildings in the world.

This summer, both Qatari and international students moved into green male and female student housing, which feature energy and water conservation technology monitored with a smart building integrated management system, wind turbines, efficient lighting and a slew of other active and passive design techniques.

(Related post: Qatar’s Msheireb Regeneration Project Will be World’s Largest LEED Cluster)

It is these that Engineer Jassim Telefat, Group Executive Director of Qatar Foundation Capital Projects and Facilities Management addressed in his presentation Visionary investment: A study of city planning in Paris and Doha at Greenbuild, which is hosted by the U.S. Green Building Council.

Eng. Telefat explained that Education City’s master plan is a live document that can be adapted to incorporate state-of-the-art advances in sustainable technology while also establishing a high quality living and learning environment.

“We prioritize human development by exposing all our youth to sustainable practices. Through the creation of environmentally-friendly student housing and a green campus, we aim to engage and nurture a community that values the environment,” he said.

“We have installed a monitoring system in each housing unit to help students track their own energy and water consumption. This project serves as a valuable tool for students, as it educates them about sustainability and encourages accountability.”

Rick Fedrizzi, President and Chief Executive Officer of the U.S. Green Building Council, acknowledged the Qatar Foundation’s green building gains at Education City, which received special recognition and praise for earning 12 Platinum LEED certifications in the New Construction category.

Qatar is getting a lot of heat for its dubious labor practices, and it’s important to take this into consideration when gushing praise, but we have a lot of respect for the Qatar Foundation’s commitment not only to providing the best education possible for both men and women, but for doing so in a way that can be sustained over the long haul.

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Qatar has promised a carbon neutral 2022 World Cup, but we know from the Masdar City experiment how hard that is to achieve. Still, here are five dubious steps AECOM and Zaha Hadid Architects are reported to be taking to support that goal with their joint design – Al-Wakrah Stadium.

Shaped like a dhow out of deference to Qatar’s long fishing history, the Al-Wakrah stadium will incorporate shading,  along with aerodynamic and mechanical cooling components to ensure that the spectator stands and the grass pitch never rise above 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit.)

Slated for construction in Al-Wakrah, the southernmost host city for the 2022 World Cup less than 10 miles outside of the capital Doha, the stadium will seat up to 40,000 spectators; half of those modular seats will be removed and shipped to developing countries at the tournament’s close.

But how – pray tell – does the Qatar 2022 Supreme Committee imagine that they will achieve a carbon neutral sporting event? Well, that depends. It turns out that there are varying degrees of carbon neutrality.

Some carbon neutral standards require only that a building produces no greenhouse gas emissions while operating, but this fails to consider the energy required to produce materials (such as concrete, which has a high embodied energy footprint), transport materials, and construct the building.

Other standards are more rigorous and take into account the entire cycle of a building, along with the surrounding transportation infrastructure. In order to be truly carbon neutral, according to the Stern Review published by the British government in 2006, a building must generate 80 percent less greenhouse gas emissions than a conventional one. 

Based on the following five steps that the design team will take to edge towards carbon neutrality with the Al-Wakrah stadium,  as outlined by Trade Arabia, we suspect that if Qatar can come even close to carbon neutrality, they will do so by observing the most lenient standards.

1. 15 percent of the tournament’s energy will be generated by on-site renewable energy sources.
2. Water use will be reduced by 60 percent.
3. 15 percent of the permanent structures will be built using reused or recycled material.
4. A full 90 percent of construction waste will be diverted through smart design and waste management. 
5. Structural timber will be sourced sustainably.

Admittedly, these will be admirable achievements if attained, and with AECOM on board they may well be.

But Qatar has a very immature supply chain of green building materials, which means the majority required to build nine stadiums, along with $140 billion in additional infrastructure such as a new airport, rail system, roads, and a new seaport, will have to be shipped in. This greatly increases the embodied energy footprint.

Construction is expected to break ground in early 2014.

:: Trade Arabia

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Young filmmakers from 19 schools in Qatar will be competing in the first ever Junior Environmental Filmmaker Awards contest. Small teams of three and four kids from grades 7 to 9 will be making movies about water.The challenge will be to create new awareness about water in young filmmakers. It will be a challenge indeed since liberal values of expression about corruption or mismanagement is not widely accepted in the Gulf State emirates. 

Also, should we be concerned that this contest is being sponsored by the ConocoPhillips Global Water Sustainability Centre (GWSC)?  ConocoPhillips is an oil and gas company and its water center aims to develop more “sustainable” desalination technologies. That could be seen as an oxymoron in some circles. It’s like in Israel the environment institute at the IDC private college is funded by the Ofer Family, and headed by Idan Ofer known for drilling shipping, chemicals, mining, and a lavish lifestyle.

But without much awareness in the Middle East about environmental action, the void is usually filled by chemical companies like Dow, and  oil and gas firms that fund and promote desalination technologies.

Despite the double message that may or may not be intended, the aim of the film competition is to help students learn about the importance of water in cities like Doha in Qatar. And we are rooting for these young directors and screenplay writers.

For those that grow from the experience, there are legions of film schools that can help them go further. The best are in film hubs, like in New York. See the New York Film Academy here. And our favorite viral film of the year No Woman, No Drive by Hisham Fageeh was made in New York.

The Middle East is one of the world’s most water-parched regions. And while rich nations in the United Arab Emirates and those in the State of Qatar can lean on desalination, the energy intensive process creates unspeakable amounts of greenhouse gases and pollution. Desalination in energy poor countries like Jordan isn’t a viable solution.

There are less energy-intensive ways to create and conserve water and we are hoping that the students and teachers competing in this challenge are picking up on good ideas and are reading Green Prophet so that eyes are wide open. That they understand that corporate “environmental” interests are sometimes but not always paid for with CSR money. And that what you learn at a company’s education center may not be the best education.

Afaf Mahmoud Jaber, a teacher at Al Wakra Independent Girls Elementary School told a local newspaper that she and her students have already learned a great deal about the importance of water conservation from visiting the water center, the GWSC.

She said: “We feel it is our duty to conserve water for the next generations in our beloved Qatar and we are looking forward to creating a video to help the cause.”

The top three films will be screened at an awards ceremony and then shown at a local 2014 Environment Fair.

The post Will Qatari Kids Make Eco Films with Eyes Wide Open? appeared first on Green Prophet.

While Islamic art has shown nudity in some formats over the generations, it is not common: most of what we see today even avoids presenting the human form.

Hirst, whose shock appeal has faded in the west, has just uncovered his installation in Doha last night called The Miraculous Journey.

Doha is a city more known for covering up than naked “anything” – even in embryonic form.

But as the city tries to bridge the old world values with the new, and rising skyscrapers beside the old image of the Arab desert dweller, this leap into modern art may be one of many new things to bridge, and challenge, the region’s comfort levels.

The sculptures appear out front of the Sidra Medical and Research Center.

The sculptures of embryos and babies were kept secret until last night.

“To have something like this is less daring than to have a lot of nudity,” says Sheika al-Mayassa Hamad who commissioned the art at a cost of about $20 million, she told the New York Times. She cites a passage in the Koran about birth. “It is not against our culture our religion.”

While people in Doha will probably not picket or protest, as it is not their culture to do so, no doubt there will be reactions to this basic body form online.

If the sculptures do get scrapped at least they are made from bronze and can be recycled.

I can recall myself at a young age going to the AGO – the Art Gallery of Ontario – during a time when there was a public discourse about nudity and art. All of the nudes in the galleries at that specific time had their private bits covered up.

I strained throughout the day to see under those paper fig leaves because it was interesting to see what the “other” sex had. Now as wife, and a mother of a boy and a girl, I know what the other has. I don’t need a sculpture to know this, but I didn’t mind the experience of checking to make sure.

I am sure the people of Doha will be curious too, as I was back then. If it’s important for culture and society to be faced with nudity while on our way to school, work or the museum, I am not sure. This is for our culture and society to decide.

Image via NY Times

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Whilst it is still uncertain whether Doha will be forced to share the 2022 World Cup or switch from summer to winter given concerns that the Gulf summers might be too arduous for athletes and visitors, Qatar is proceeding with preparations to deliver a state-of-the-art international sporting experience.

In addition to building several solar-powered stadiums, the government is planning to boost its transportation sector to accommodate the thousands of people  who are expected to attend what will be the first World Cup to take place in the Middle East.

The four districts include a Business District, where the transportation hub will be centered, an Aviation Campus that will host educational facilities for aviation professionals and the project headquarters, a Logistics District for cargo and warehousing and finally a Residential District that will house employees.

All told, 200,000 people will live and work in Airport City, which OMA’s Rem Koolhaas suggests might be the first of its kind to seriously integrate the airport and the city it serves.

Michel Desvigne designed the “green spine,” which will run parallel to the airport’s runaways and consist of a variety of public spaces, gardens and plazas that will be available to both tourists and local residents. Surrounding this will be a “Desert Park,” according to the design brief.

“Doha’s Airport City is an important addition to the realization of OMA’s work in urbanism and will incorporate unprecedented transport planning opportunities; we look forward to collaborating with the HIA to meet the objectives of this ambitious project,” said Iyad Alsaka, the OMA partner in charge of the project.

While nobody should be building in the desert, given the absence of water so crucial to life, there is no question that Qatar is firmly placing itself on the map with yet another splashy urban development.

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Qatar Airways ambitious new plan to erect a $19 billion Pearl project that will be the largest gas-to-liquids plant in the world, is receiving massive praise and optimism over its future success. The President of the Council of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Roberto Kobeh González said at the recent climate event COP18 in Doha that the project could revolutionize air travel and alternative energy efforts.

“We really welcome this project as an example of the varying biofuel solutions that can be applied in different areas around the globe,” stressed Kobeh in Doha as he detailed the ICAO’s status updates for the aviation industry on energy. Qatar has the largest per capita carbon footprint in the world. 

“The Qatar project is notable in that it is State-backed and employs resources natural to the surroundings. These do not depend on arable land vital to food consumption,”  Kobeh added.

Royal Dutch Shell said in November that the Qatar plant is to pump airline fuel made from natural gas from its gas-to-liquids plant near Qatar Airways’ Doha International Airport, which is to open in 2013 and has received much fanfare from airline industry executives.

A top American airline executive told Green Prophet that the North American carriers are optimistic that if Qatar can develop the natural gas industry for planes, it could translate into reducing overall costs for US carriers.

“We have seen prices rise dramatically in recent years because of the overall price hikes in oil and this endeavor is very curious for us here in the US,” the executive said on condition of anonymity as they did not want to speak to a competitor’s potential advantage. “Natural gas gives much more energy for less and if successful, this could see airlines able to travel similar distances using much less fuel.”

The Pearl project will process around three billion barrels of oil-equivalent over its lifespan, Shell added in a statement in October discussing the project some 80 kilometers north of Doha.

The plant currently produces 120,000 barrels of the liquified natural gas and ethane.

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The reasons for that are both complicated and simple: aside from an obvious collective denial about the difficulties that are hurling down the path as a result of climate change, rich nations are especially unwilling to acknowledge their role in the accumulation of greenhouse gases that has put us in so much trouble because they don’t want to pay for it.

Although some analysts considered COP17 in Durban to be less of a disappointment because nations agreed to write a successor to the Kyoto Protocol by 2015, this year’s conference was a waste of time, effort and money. (Because frankly, at this stage, anything short of revolutionary will not keep the globe safe from harm.)

This would be less frustrating, perhaps, if everybody who attended the Doha meetings were completely clueless about climate change, if no reports in the last two weeks had revealed in no uncertain terms how thoroughly storms and bugs and heat and rising seas are going to destroy life as we know it.

Everybody knows, but only a handful of countries, namely Lebanon, the Dominican Republic, Belarus and Ukraine are prepared to cut their own emissions.

And only Germany, Britain, France, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark and the EU Commission in Doha agreed to contribute to the $20 billion global climate change fund agreed to at COP15.

“The question of climate management is extremely serious,” said Laurent Fabius, France’s foreign minister, according to Reuters.

“It appears we have already exceeded the 2-degree limit. If that is the case, there are absolutely catastrophic consequences. We must react.”

That’s the consensus, but rich countries like the United States, Canada and Japan refused to sign an interim agreement to cut emissions and the very mention of a Loss and Damage fund owed to poor, vulnerable nations seems to give everybody hives.

Both the EU and US cite the global economic crisis as justification for their reluctance to make commitments.

But here’s the great fallacy. Delaying payments now will not forestall the inevitable, which is destruction on a scale never before seen on earth. Hurricanes and typhoons are going to keep ripping through coastal towns and we’ll be forced to clean up the mess, year after year.

Hurricane Sandy alone is expected to cost $50 billion USD, according to early estimates, which is half of what all the developed nations committed to raise by 2020. So we’re going to pay some time down the line, whether we like it or not.

Our leaders have failed us. Miserably. Again. Is it time for the people to take matters into their own hands?

Image of Hurricane Sandy damage by Leonard Zhukovsky, Shutterstock

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