Researchers: Dr. Muna Salameh and Dr. Basim Touqan
Achieving future energy objectives and promoting social, economic, and environmental sustainability can be inspired by heritage and historic structures, which make up a sizeable component of the existing building industry. Heritage architecture and urban sites are known for their capability of positive interaction with the climate to provide better thermal conditions, beside their capability of strengthening cultural identity and improving the economic sector for the related sites. Thus, the main purpose of this research is to highlight the positive sustainable effects (social, economic and environmental) for a proposal of conserving and reconstructing a vernacular heritage architecture site in Ajman in the hot arid climate in the UAE. The research used a qualitative methodology based on multicriteria descriptive schemes beside ENVI-met software.
The research’s findings presented the capability of the conserved heritage area to strengthen the social and cultural identity and improve the economic sector. Moreover, the results demonstrated that the conserved heritage district had a better microclimate and predicted mean vote for outdoor thermal comfort compared to the basic case heritage district prior to rehabilitation and another modern district. The conclusion promotes heritage conservation in hot arid climates and encourages the preservation of vernacular architecture and traditional sites to achieve the sustainable goals for creating sustainable cities that can mitigate climate change.
The research methodology includes qualitative analysis for the heritage area in Ajman, one of the United Arab Emirates, before and after the suggested development and rehabilitation. The research’s main objective was to determine whether heritage preservation can be used as positive investment for the three pillars of sustainability in the urban contexts, which has constructive effects on social, environmental, and economic factors in addition to cultural ones. To do this, the study required the use of various methods and evaluation indicators, to be chosen depending on the objective to be achieved, whether for economic, social, and environmental assessment. This multicriteria methodology is advantageous for choosing the technique to be used according to the assessment measures such as data collection from journals, site visits, municipality records, etc. Additionally, there were descriptive and analytical readings for the current situation for the heritage area using ENVI-met software.
Results and Discussion
The new rehabilitation, conservation and reconstruction for the Ajman heritage area included the addition and integration of clusters of buildings that followed the traditional passive urban and architectural features in the old UAE vernacular architecture. The added features were the following:
- Public and in-building courtyards that improve the stack effect and increase the shaded area and lower the outdoor temperature.
- Compacted masses in the southern part of the district to create shade in relation to the sun path.
- Narrow windy pathways that create canyon breeze and improve the air movement.
- Barajeel (wind tower) that is added as a traditional symbol only, but due to its height it will create more shaded areas.
These features were added and integrated based on the characteristics of the heritage areas in the UAE to mimic the effective sustainable existing elements that are suitable for the climate, social, economic conditions for the district. Secondly, these features were chosen based on the deep analysis of many studies. This expansion is expected to improve the sustainable traditional neighborhood at three levels of sustainability: environmentally, socially and economically.
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