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Sustainable Framework for Upgrading Residential Buildings in United Arab Emirates

Mohamed Elkaftangui 1 and Sadika Shakour 2
1. Department of Architecture, Abu Dhabi University, Al Ain Road, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
2. Department of Interior Design, Abu Dhabi University, Al Ain Road, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

Abstract—The Government of Abu Dhabi has lately started work to develop sustainability guidelines and regulatory tools. The program is called Estidama, which means ‘sustainability’ in Arabic, has been initiated by a group of government agencies and developers to align the leadership’s vision in transforming Abu Dhabi to a sustainable Arab capital and to create guidelines and regulations to ensure sustainable design, operating and maintenance of all types of buildings and communities within the Emirates. At this time and since November 2010, the Estidama sustainable program has been specifically designed to apply to new residential and commercial buildings. Existing residential stock does not form part of the current appraisal and will need to be considered in the future. The old residential stock present 80% of the total residential units available in the market and extending the environmental standards to the old residential stock will certainly contribute in decreasing the gap between supply and demand while offering renovated to standard units. This paper highlights the status of the existing residential stock, old and new, in the UAE built environment. Though a various contextual characteristics, field observations, investigations and analysis, we propose series of solutions and tools for a long term plan to integrate effective sustainable retrofitting in architecture and interior design for the old residential stock, to compliment the national Abu Dhabi vision 2030.
 
Index Terms—sustainability, housing, strategies, green materials, refurbishment

Cite: Mohamed Elkaftangui and Sadika Shakour, "Sustainable Framework for Upgrading Residential Buildings in United Arab Emirates," International Journal of Structural and Civil Engineering Research, Vol. 6, No. 1, pp. 35-39, February 2017. doi: 10.18178/ijscer.6.1.35-39