Cities are getting choked with a jungle — a jungle of concrete, steel and glass. Architecture here is needlessly influenced by concepts from predominantly the western world. One shall not forget that most of the iconic designs are developed by expatriates. One of the most difficult problems for expatriates in understanding the cities of the Middle East is their relative lack of public realm.

Globalization has given respect for buildings that resemble objects, have matchbox designs with unfortunate functional separations. Designs are built on the burden of unnecessary stylistic demands. There seems to be this inherent copy-paste mindset, among designers. This advocates methods of tweaking ideas from a one cultural context and illogically pasting them into another. Being the tallest, biggest and longest does not lend personality to the architecture of a place.

As an architect, I often wonder why is there a perception that any element of existing heritage of the Middle East — be it cultural or spiritual — is always identified with the past, backwardness and poverty; while the image of “development” or “progress” is always borrowed from elsewhere? This process of disassociating with one’s own heritage is a very harmful one. Being the tallest, biggest and longest does not give a personality to the architecture of a place.

Architects have freed themselves from any kind of environmental constraint in the design of glazing and consider the engineering body of men to assume responsibility for maintaining the internal conditions desired for habitation. Ferraris are beautiful cars — a perfect balance between beauty and technology — but do not claim to be ecological or environmental friendly while they are sold. The same analogy — some glass façades are outstanding in terms of beauty and innovation, but we need to think twice before calling them environmentally friendly in the Middle East. One can also imagine the amount of water, equipment and manpower required to just clean off all the settled dust on the thousands of square meters of glass and solar panels on all buildings in the Middle East! Nowadays, tenants spend a lot of money on the interior layouts in order to cut down the harsh light and heat coming in through the huge pans of un-shaded exterior glass.

In the past few years, the expatriate idea of building green has been bought in. These are just temporary trends set up for supportive marketing of related fields of construction activity. Sophisticated and expensive intelligent service systems are still marketed, sold and applied. The word green is certainly abused and misunderstood by most of the engineering empire. Green wants to embrace everything, and everyone wants to embrace green. But when a definition becomes so overarching, it loses all significance. Architects now depend much on intelligent service systems to make up for their folly and neglect in basic building design. It is unfortunate that these rating systems like LEED, BREAM; have converted architecture into an accounting exercise. This has completely digressed from what could have been a healthy exercise in producing truly good architecture. It is unfortunate, that we are missing an opportunity to produce good architecture, by allowing these accounting or statistical procedures to dominate our logical thinking and creativity. Inappropriate implementation of add-on techniques has lead to cumbersome compensation and disorder. Advocating bicycle racks or trying to invest in a rainwater harvesting system in the Middle East is another perfect example. While it may fetch you extra points in the LEED rating, the whole initiative — if analyzed — is a wasteful one. The use of glass is still celebrated. There is no account of the money spent on the pointless additional cooling required and superfluous cleaning of all the building's dust-laid glass façades. 

Targeting maximum LEED points especially in GCC countries requires more common sense and deeper understanding of the effect. I also urge clients/developers to be open minded pertaining to their LEED vision. Inappropriate implementation of add-on techniques has more often than not led to cumbersome processes. There is no point in accommodating ample green ideas and techniques and ultimately end up with a building that’s not comfortable to live or work in. Common sense is the key. Traditional Islamic architecture included many innovative, functional and ecological design principles, but none of them have been perpetuated by the new generation architects.

The world needs green buildings a lot more than green buildings need LEED certification. If certifications such as LEED, BREEAM continue to cost too much money, time and effort — we will not stop building green projects; we will just stop certifying them.

As architects, we have to convince Middle Eastern elites and ourselves that the optimistic concept of importing ideas of “progress” will only kill the character of a place and its public realm. The future of architecture in the Middle East desperately lies in logical design, controlled urban growth and in the acceptance of one’s own cultural roots. I am hopeful.