Friday, March 29, 2024

Cooler, Greener, Cheaper: Egyptian Architects Seek Antidotes To Rising Heat

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By Menna A. Farouk

The desert buildings Atef Azzazy and his team of farm workers once lived and toiled in were hot in the summer, cold in the winter and leaky enough they sometimes let in snakes, he remembers.

Three years ago, however, the team working in Bahariya Oasis, in Egypt’s Western Desert, got an upgrade: Well-insulated homes and work buildings designed to shed Egypt’s increasingly searing summer heat and hold down climate-changing emissions.

ECOnsult, an Egyptian architecture firm that specialises in green, energy-efficient and affordable buildings, designed the structures for 120 workers in the Saharan oasis village, from farmers and engineers to administrative staff.

“The buildings are now cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter” by about 5-7 degrees Celsius, Azzazy said – a huge advantage as climate change brings ever more extreme weather.

Faced with rising temperatures, Egyptian architects are working to come up with green buildings that can keep people safe and cooler, and cut down on the emissions that drive global warming. Read more…

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