We’ve featured some of the world’s most beautiful mosques on Green Prophet, but this is the first that resembles a cave. Slated for a prairie landscape in Buyuk Cekmece on the outskirts of Istanbul, the Sancaklar Mosque by Emre Arolat Architects is designed to offer genuine reprieve from the growing madness of urban life. This […]
The mayor of Lebanon’s capital Beirut has launched “Beirut is Amazing,” an ambitious plan to finally green up the infamous concrete city. Following dedicated activism and scores of complaints from urban planners and designers, the city recruited the private sector to help regenerate existing green spaces and to create a few more. But Horsh Beirut, […]
Waterstudio.NL is world-renowned for its forward-thinking approach to architecture. While so many architects and developers (especially in our region) are still stuck on growing mammoth skyscrapers on land, this Dutch firm has carved a niche in floating architecture in preparation of climate change and rising seas. Their projects are numerous and range from small house […]
Not to be outdone by Masdar City in Abu Dhabi, Dubai will soon begin construction on its own ‘sustainable city,’ where green transportation options include horses. Lest it seem that the new 743,000m2 development project entails a remarkable step backward, solar-powered vehicles are also planned, which is every bit as ambitious (and unlikely) as Masdar’s long-since-abandoned […]
Saudi Arabia will save an estimated 690,000 barrels of oil a day by investing in renewables. Wonder just why Saudi Arabia finally got serious about solar with a $109 billion plan to solar-power a third of the Kingdom? I did. After all, for a long time, while its greener neighbors have been adding thousands of […]
It may look like a castle, but this beautiful red-earth building is actually an 11-roomed hotel that receives 80% of its energy from the sun. And like the eco-lodge, Hassan and his wife Hélène of the Atlas Kasbah are no run-of-the-mill owners. He is Berber, she is French, and they both possess Masters Degrees in Sustainable […]
We speak to Mohamed Abdel Raouf, a green researcher who will be attending the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) about what it could do for the Arab world According to the latest reporting, the preparatory talks ahead of the Rio+20 summit have been inconclusive and raised real concerns that the conference will be a […]
Forest in central Israel, as seen from Ein Karem Some architects and economists are proposing Israel solve its affordable housing crisis by turning central Israel into a “megacity,” similar to Hong Kong, and moving the nation’s lush nature reserves and agricultural lands to the Negev and the Galilee. Supporters of this solution insist it would […]
Does goes on a mission to find out what typifies an Egyptian environmentalist. A few months ago Egypt was named the greenest country in the Middle-East by a Yale group, even topping neighbouring Israel. It even turned out to be one of the best improving countries in the world. If you ever visited it, this might sound […]
Twelve new UAE graduates have been employed to work with the Masdar Institute. In 2010, Emiratis made up only 13% of their own country’s population. The oil industry and Dubai’s construction boom attracted millions of foreigners, including Indian laborers that just two years ago comprised a whopping 50% of the population, resulting in a tragic […]
As part of the 1979 peace treaty with Israel, the Sinai Peninsula was restored to Egyptian control – an event that the country celebrated with some fanfare on April 25th, 2012. On that same day, the Egyptian Prime Minister Kamal Ganzouri witnessed two separate development plans that were signed between the Social Development Fund (SFD) and governors […]
Doha-based architect Romi Sebastian questions the feasibility of Qatar’s urban planning ahead of the 2022 World Cup Qatar is moving rapidly towards its vision to host the world cup in 2022. Yet if scrutinised, current progress in urban infrastructure and architecture seems to be frail in terms of character and functional approach. Is the idea of […]
The Stars of Science reality TV show would be so much more exciting if it spurred sustainable ideas. Perhaps we shouldn’t begrudge the Arab World’s first serious reality TV show, particularly since Stars of Science was designed to encourage more youth in the region to pursue science and technology. But it’s hard to turn a […]
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 when we learned that the deal to design a major project for her home country, […]
The new Siemens Headquarters in Masdar City will be 65, 617 square feet when completed by the end of this year. We recently reported that Siemens has teamed up with Masdar to develop a new generation of sand-resistant solar panels that will make more sense for desert environments, and that building the firm’s Middle Eastern […]