Vol :37 Issue No.1 2012 - Open House International

ing as a shading device. As the main concern was
devoted to environmental sustainability, the designers
argue that energy consumption inside the
matrix is shown to be significantly less than an average
tower complex.
The main significant differences that the Norr’s
approach provides, if compared to the conventional
designs for high-rise residential buildings in the
UAE as mentioned above, are, first, the environmental
consideration represented in the PV veil that
surrounds the whole complex. Second, is the introduction
of the idea of the vertical shared public
landscaped spaces that work as a catalyst for residents’
interactions. Third, is the design for a mixeduse
development. These with no doubt are essential
issues in the “design for the community”
approach but there are still other crucial issues that
have not been considered in the proposal and
which rigorously hinder the claim that this
approach is a sound community-oriented one relevant
to the high-rise residential buildings in the
UAE. These issues include; the lack of space control
due to the total space integration among different
uses (residential-office-hotel) especially on
the upper levels and the resultant violation of the
residents’ privacy, which is a very essential component
of the residential context for the UAE natives.
Space hierarchy from public, semi-public, semi-private
and private, which consequently means space
control, is also not clear in this approach. This
jeopardizes the important measure of security of
residents of the complex. Another community-relevant
problem in the proposal is the disassociation
between the complex and its urban surrounding.
The proposed veil is intensifying this sense of isolation.
The solution also did not depict the design of
the house-in-the-sky and how it would response to
the unique needs of the inhabitants. Therefore,
there is still a need to search for a more developed
approach, which is responsive to the native UAE
society. The following section presents the idea of
the traditional, and yet newly advocated, fareej as
a base for the proposed approach.
Figure 8 a&b&c. The Habitat Model by Norr Group
(Source: Jan and Norr Group 2009).
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a
b
c
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open house international Vol.37 No.1, March 2012 A ‘Fareej-in-the-Sky’: Towards a Community-oriented Design... Khaled Galal Ahmed