Fast Company article highlights blending traditional and modern techniques for sustainable architecture.
In a recent Fast Company article, HOK Washington, D.C., Design Principal Roger Schwabacher shared his insights on sustainable design in the Middle East. The article focused on blending traditional and modern techniques to create environmentally friendly and energy-efficient buildings. Schwabacher emphasized the importance of learning from the region’s traditional architecture to better understand how to adapt to the harsh climate.
Schwabacher discussed the benefits of integrating old ideas with new technology: “We can study it [how to channel wind tunnels] on the computer, model and figure out exactly how it will work. So, we do get those flows of winds across the spaces, and we can model the shadows from different times of the year.”
He mentioned that incorporating indigenous regional materials, like stone from local quarries, can make buildings more sustainable and better suited to the local environment. Schwabacher explained that HOK has used materials such as glass fiber-reinforced concrete to create high-performance buildings with an organic feel.
The article also highlighted the practical use of water in sustainable design, such as HOK’s design of the King Abdullah Petroleum Studies and Research Center Residential Community (KAPSARC) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Schwabacher described how the community was built around a dry riverbed, allowing stormwater to be harnessed and creating a lush park for residents.
Narrow streets enable the buildings to provide shade to pedestrian areas at the KAPSARC Residential Community in Riyadh.
To capture the cooling winds at the KAPSARC Residential Community in Riyadh, HOK’s design lifted the buildings up one floor, with many breezeway connections at the ground floor.
This space funnels winds to create naturally cooled outdoor areas at the KAPSARC Residential Community in Riyadh.
HOK’s design for the Riyadh Gateway design competition used natural and local materials, including rammed earth on lower levels of the arena so that the structure seemed to grow out of the landscape forms.
Read the Fast Company article.