Development in the Gulf: sustainable, intelligent and smart

Article Type: Guest editorial From: Smart and Sustainable Built Environment, Volume 2, Issue 3.

The Gulf area witnesses a huge boom in construction. The total value of construction projects planned or underway in the six Gulf Cooperation Council states – the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman – was about $1.9 trillion in 2011. Gulf countries have unique characteristics and these affect the systems, operations and activities of their construction industries. Unfortunately, little is currently known about these characteristics and as a consequence, there is doubt over whether the built environment shall be able to sustain this level of growth, or if the social, economic, technological and demographic pressure will prove too much for the Gulf States. Clearly there are gaps in our knowledge of how institutes of higher education are responding to such pressure. In particular, whether the construction industry is smart in the response it is making to the pressure for change and if this is based on the innovative design and application of systems, operations and activities needed to sustain the built environment.

Unlike in Europe, North America and Asia, few research studies have examined whether the built environment in the Gulf States is sustainable, let alone if they are intelligent and smart (Deakin and Al Wear, 2012; Deakin, 2013, 2014). So the editors have proposed a number of areas that can help build such capacities. These areas were highlighted in the call for papers and include the following:

• the role of higher education sector in underpinning the construction industry's response to such pressure for change and supporting the innovative designs and applications it calls for;

• the construction sector's use of smart technologies and intelligent systems within the Gulf States;

• the interdisciplinary and integrated nature of the design and implementation of such technical systems in the built environment;

• managing the transition to technical systems with the built environment that are both intelligent and smart;

• the skills needed and competencies which are required to manage built environments whose technical systems are both intelligent and smart;

• the construction, operation and use of smart building technologies within intelligent systems;

• the regulation and governance of smart building technologies within intelligent systems;

• the role of academics, professional and governmental agencies as stakeholder communities in assessing the contribution such technical systems make to the sustainability of the built environment;

• the practical lessons learnt about sustainable development, intelligent systems and smart technologies as driving forces in this transformation of the built environment; and

• institutional impediments to such a innovation-led and creatively inspired transformation of the built environment.

The papers brought together in this special issue capture the state-of-the-art on “Development in the Gulf” and what are termed“sustainable, intelligent and smart solutions” to the pressing challenges rapid urbanization in these states poses. Under this heading the issue brings together five papers from experts who have been particularly innovative in applying them to the built environment. Collectively they offer a series of critical insights into aspects of affordable housing development within the Gulf States and the assessment methods available to evaluate whether these solutions are not only sustainable,but also intelligent and smart. Individually they are presented as a set of case studies in the development of sustainable,intelligent and smart solutions.

Case 1: LEED as a tool for enhancing affordable housing sustainability

Although affordable housing is spreading all over Saudi Arabia, this paper suggests it does not pay enough attention to sustainability.

Attia tests the potential LEED has to enhance the sustainability of affordable housing in Saudi Arabia. This is achieved by adjusting the assessment tool to meet the needs of Gulf States and by introducing a set of indicators able to foster the environmental sustainability of affordable housing.

Under this adjusted assessment housing units are evaluated in accordance with their capacity to capture solar energy, enhance shading, develop compact high-density mixed-use sites that encourage walking and which reduce vehicular movement, use low-water consumption fixtures and install a grey-water management system. Measures which in turn lead to improved thermal insulation of the building envelop, fitting energy-efficient lighting and home appliances (depending on sensitive materials and renewable energy resources) and promoting community involvement in sustainable housing development.

Case 2: barriers and enablers of sustainability

Al Surf et al. discuss the barriers and enablers of sustainable housing development in Saudi Arabia. They use a Delphi method survey based on 25 stakeholders within the Saudi housing sector. As Al Surf et al. identify, not only is the public's awareness of sustainability in Saudi Arabia currently under-developed, but this turns out to be the most significant barrier to the implementation of affordable housing development. This, they suggest, in turn,leads to the under-development of key stakeholder interest in sustainable housing provision and low levels of investment in this sector of the built environment. To overcome these barriers, Al Surf et al. draw particular attention to the need for the public to be better educated on the benefits of sustainable housing development.

Case 3: utilization of life cycle analysis to evaluate sustainability

Although rating systems (i.e. those embedded in the likes of LEED, BREEAM, CASEBEE and Green Star) have assisted project stakeholders to assess sustainable development, this paper argues there is insufficient evidence to suggest the practices recommended by these methods achieve the lowest level of environmental impact. The paper suggests that having evolved from a consensus-based understanding of environmental issues, itself grounded in conventional wisdom, such rating systems do not always stand up to objective analysis. Furthermore, they go on to suggest there is no method available for evaluating the change in embodied impacts of buildings awarded certification by rating systems.

To achieve this and thereby assess the embodied impact of buildings on the environment, the authors propose the use of Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) as a powerful and objective tool for validating the way rating systems evaluate project performance. Applying this to the Qatar Sustainability Assessment System (QSAS), recently developed by the Gulf Organization for Research and Development (GORD), they go on to demonstrate how this rating system overcomes the limitations of LEED by assessing the embodied impacts of various components on the built environment.

Case 4: walkability in cities and smart urban solutions

This case study notes that cities in the Gulf have a very poor Walkability Index. Indeed they suggest not only is walking the forgotten mode of transport, but it has become impossible in most cities of the Gulf States. Not because of the extreme weather conditions they experience, but due to the excessive dependence of the residents on the private automobile. In this paper Elhamy highlights the social side of sustainability and suggests that walkability has advantages and benefits such as:

• individual benefits in terms of improving mental and physical health and fitness;

• community benefits: people become attached to parks, gardens and other open places, and appreciate them for what they offer culturally, socially and personally;

• health benefits: a numbers of studies support the physical benefits of walking and how it can help in reducing the risk of NCDs;

• economic benefits: walking activities have economic advantages for transportation system by reducing the number of trips made by cars, thereby reducing congestion and freeing up road space for essential motor vehicle trips; and

• environmental benefits: walking is non-polluting and has the potential to replace short distance car trips, which are the least fuel efficient and generate the greatest level of pollution per mile travelled.

These aspects can contribute to the development of attractive and comfortable outdoor spaces and offer a valuable contribution to quality of life experienced by those participating in such activities.

Case 5: diabetes and built environments

In this paper Sidawi and Deakin discuss the relationship diabetes has to the built environment by shifting attention away from the epidemiology of the medical condition and towards the anthropology of the unhealthy lifestyles whose habit persistent practices are associated with the spread of the disease. They suggest that realizing the health-related benefits of smart city neighborhoods in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) shall be challenging because:

• the built environment in KSA is not designed and laid out according to the World Health Organisation's (WHO) planning principals and those designed to provide services, facilities and systems able to promote healthy lifestyles;

• some social groups experience poor living conditions that adversely affect the health of the residents with diabetes and limited health care is provided in these communities;

• there is concentration of air pollution in the built environments of these groups and this further aggravates their medical condition; and

• the influence Islamic culture has on the Saudis’ means they have little physical inter-action with the built environment when compared to other societies.

Sidawi and Deakin suggest Gulf cities not only need to be “green and lean” in planning healthy lifestyles for the development of communities, but also require to “get smart” in deploying the digital technologies and platform of electronically enhanced services which are currently available to meet the design and layout challenges such smart city neighborhoods pose.

Dr Bhzad Sidawi

College of Architecture and Planning, University of Dammam, Dammam, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Professor Mark Deakin

School of Engineering and Built Environment, Edinburgh Napier University, Edinburgh, UK

Dr Husam Al waer

School of Architecture, University of Dundee, Dundee, UK

References

Deakin, M. (Ed.) (2013), Creating Smart-er Cities, Routledge, Oxon

Deakin, M. (Ed.) (2014), Smart Cities: Governing, Modelling and Analyzing the Transition, Routledge, Oxon

Deakin, M. and Al Wear, H. (Eds) (2012), From Intelligent to Smart Cities, Routledge, London