A Ritzy venue for Bahrain’s sustainability conference planned for January 27th and 28th. Because Bahrain is so small, the island state is almost easy to ignore. Except that it is a financial hub for the Persian Gulf States, and therefore exerts a certain amount of influence. Hence, a sustainability conference sponsored almost exclusively by companies […]
The Guangzhou Opera House will open soon, ushering in yet another building of mass ecological destruction. Occasionally, readers accuse Green Prophet writers of being killjoys. Israel finds the Leviathan gas field and throws the party of the century, but we hang our heads, certain of the environmental and social destruction that will follow. And when […]
Young Swahili “beach boys” ride in a traditional dhow in Lamu, which is threatened by a multi-billion dollar port project. Lamu’s enclave of UNESCO-protected Swahili culture – an enduring tradition born from a fusion of coastal Bantu and Arab traders that settled here centuries ago – is threatened by a multi-billion dollar port project. For […]
Is marketing Egypt as the next hot spot for high-tech architecture the right way to deflect Dubai’s failure? From an ecological perspective, Dubai is heading towards failure. From an economic perspective, some argue that it already has. How will this improbable city pick up the pieces? Todd Reisz, an architect based in New York City, […]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xc-KLWyxSCc[/youtube] For the first time, the Gulf Kingdom of Bahrain is participating at the La Biennale International Architecture Exhibition in Venice. But theirs is an unusual approach. In accord with this year’s theme – to experience rather than merely observe architecture – Bahrain’s National Pavilion comprises a multidimensional, sensory depiction of an earlier, more integrated, […]
At a time when sane people are looking for ways to scale back their use of precious resources, Abu Dhabi continues to move full speed ahead. More than once I’ve flattened the gas pedal on long country roads: trees whoosh by, road lines blur, and for those few moments of abandonment, I had not a […]
Is this a mirage, or does Chilean Fernando Fischmann really intend to build the world’s largest artificial lagoon on the already ecologically-sensitive Red Sea? In Egypt there will be more artificial fun for rich men and women while the poor can’t even trust that their tap water is safe, that their waste will be disposed […]