GAJ’s Arcadia High School designed project is first in the region to achieve LEED Gold
The Arcadia High School, designed by Godwin Austen Johnson (GAJ), is the first school in the Middle East to be awarded the LEED V4 (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design) Gold certification.
It was awarded 62 points by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) making it the fourth highest ranking school outside of the USA.
Completed in 2020, The Arcadia High School, located in Dubai’s Jumeirah Village Circle, covers a total teaching space of 7500sqm including classrooms, shared learning and labs. The ancillary facilities which includes the library, music and dance rooms cover an area of 1500sqm.
Drawing inspiration from Arcadia School, the primary school completed by GAJ in 2016, the secondary school’s reception is bright and airy opening out into a large casual seating zone with a unique 12 metre high indoor climbing wall feature. The inclusion of the wall was designed to reinforce the school’s ethos of transparency and its desire to ensure students play a highly visible and interactive role in their education.
“The Arcadia High School is a prime example of sustainable design and construction and we are thrilled the project has been awarded LEED Gold certification,” said Jason Burnside, partner at Godwin Austen Johnson. “Throughout the project our aim was to put in place a whole raft of sustainable measures including a thermally insulated building envelope, LED lighting with daylight/motion sensor controls and a high performance water cooled oil-free magnetic bearings chillers.”
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King Salman Energy Park receives LEED Silver certification
King Salman Energy Park (SPARK) in Saudi Arabia has become the first industrial city in the world to receive Silver level accreditation for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED).
The LEED certification strengthens SPARK’s ability to support future tenants and investors on their journey towards LEED certification of their facilities, as part of a fully-integrated energy community. It also affirms the city’s integrated sustainability practices, which are at the heart of the community’s planning.
SPARK President & CEO, Saif S. Al Qahtani, said: “SPARK is distinguishing itself as a leading global energy, industrial and technology hub, cementing Saudi Arabia’s position as a progressive innovator in these fields on the international stage. The certification reaffirms our commitment to reducing the city’s carbon footprint. LEED communities are in high global demand, as they offer better rates of profitability, productivity and quality of the workplace. Our goal is to create an ecosystem for energy-related companies to grow with minimum environmental impact, and we encourage other industrial cities to follow our lead.”
Strategically located at the heart of Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province, SPARK’s vision is to be the primary gateway to the regional energy sector. Its technologically-advanced ecosystem offers investors unmatched supply-chain efficiency and has been designed to provide an ultramodern “plug and play” infrastructure. As well as targeting large corporations, SPARK also caters to small and medium-sized enterprises and provides support through its SPARK SME Hub, creating a tailored microcosm for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). This allows streamlined and cost-effective operations near major workforce providers and close to highway and railway networks. At maturity, it will be home to over 300 industrial, technology and service facilities focused on meeting the demand for energy goods and services across the entire value chain.
DIFC’s Gate Avenue awarded LEED Gold Certification
Dubai International Financial Centre’s (DIFC) Gate Avenue has been awarded the prestigious LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Gold accreditation from the US Green Building Council and Green Building Certification Inc. This prestigious LEED Gold certification marks the DIFC’s continued commitment to sustainability by ensuring assets reduce their carbon footprint. The achievement ensures DIFC continues to distinguish itself with world class infrastructure.
LEED is the most widely used sustainable buildings rating system in the world, providing a framework for healthy, highly efficient and cost-saving sustainable buildings. It recognises only those projects that follow high environmental standards of sustainability; water and energy efficiency; optimum utilisation of materials and resources and healthy indoor environment quality, which leads to the reduction of global greenhouse gases.
Gate Avenue was awarded the LEED Gold certification for successfully fulfilling the prerequisites and credits across nine measurements for building excellence from integrative design to human health to material use. This was made possible by the expertise and support of AESG – the firm that delivered the LEED consultancy services for the project. Through AESG’s expert advice, supported by onsite management and testing, Gate Avenue, DIFC met LEED’s high standards across all of its categories, reflecting the best practices applied in this development.
Spanning 286,000 square feet of built up area and 880 metres in total length, Gate Avenue at DIFC is quickly becoming part of one of Dubai’s most sought after lifestyle destinations featuring more than 200 leading lifestyle, retail, art, fashion, food & beverage brands, and the modern grand mosque. Gate Avenue links the podium levels of all buildings located in the Centre, from The Gate Building to Central Park Towers.
AESG worked to incorporate several innovative features by strategically selecting credits with high sustainability impact and minimal design impact. The credits pursued, such as water reduction are regionally relevant. The building underwent fundamental and enhanced commissioning for efficiency and performance. Furthermore, materials with high recycled content, including concrete, steel and glass have been installed to reduce embodied carbon emissions. High occupancy density rooms include CO2 sensors provide a fresh air supply. A
Commenting on the announcement, Saleh Al Akrabi, CEO, DIFC Property Management said: “We are proud that Gate Avenue at DIFC has been awarded the prestigious LEED Gold Certification. Providing world class sustainable infrastructure, which includes Gate Avenue forms part of DIFC’s commitment to becoming the region’s most sustainable financial centre. We look forward to continuing to build a more sustainable and resilient Centre for our community of more than 25,000 professionals and for all those who visit for business and leisure.”
“AESG is thrilled to have provided LEED and sustainability consultancy services for this impressive development. This LEED Gold certification is validation of the team’s significant efforts and commitment to ensuring the development is environmentally and socially responsible. It is this shift towards high performance buildings in the construction sector that will have a lasting and positive impact both now and for generations to come”, said Phillipa Grant, Director of Energy and Sustainability at AESG.
‘ICD Brookfield Place’ tower becomes the tallest and largest LEED Platinum-certified office building in EMEA region
ICD Brookfield announced that its newest commercial office development, ICD Brookfield Place, has achieved the prestigious LEED Platinum (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification, the highest rating awarded by the US Green Building Council for green building design, construction, operations and performance. In accomplishing LEED Platinum, ICD Brookfield Place, located in the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), becomes the tallest and largest office building in the EMEA region to achieve the rating, and takes its place among the top 20 of the world’s largest LEED Platinum projects.
Designed by Foster + Partners, ICD Brookfield Place is a 1.1 million square foot, state-of-the-art office and retail complex offering 990,000 square feet of highly efficient and flexible workspace alongside 160,000 square feet of curated retail and dining offerings. The development and management of the property are overseen by Brookfield Properties, one of the world’s leading real estate services companies.
“We are very proud to be one of the most environmentally and occupant conscious buildings globally,” said Rob Devereux, CEO of ICD Brookfield. “Our leadership approach to sustainability, creates value for our tenants while focusing on what’s right for our planet. By reducing our impact on the environment, we are setting a new benchmark for healthy, highly efficient, and cost-saving buildings in the region.”
A number of sustainable, environmentally conscious, carbon footprint reducing features as well as occupant wellbeing principles have been incorporated at ICD Brookfield Place to achieve the world’s most widely used green building rating system. These include:
During construction over 87% of waste was recycled to reduce waste to landfill. The building has increased fresh air by more than 30% above the ASHRAE (American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers) requirements and significantly above local standards, and uses UV light technology incorporated in the HVAC system to prevent the transmission of bacterial and viral infections.
“It is an honour to have been appointed by ICD Brookfield to work on this incredible project that sets a new benchmark for commercial development in the EMEA region,” said Saeed Al Abbar, managing director of AESG. “Helping ICD Brookfield Place successfully achieve the LEED Platinum certification emphasises our commitment to supporting our clients worldwide to achieve high performance buildings that meet the highest levels of sustainability. ICD Brookfield Place sets a new benchmark for the region and it is industrious leadership such as this will not only support the sustainable vision of the UAE, but also raise the bar for sustainable buildings globally.”
City Centre Almaza in Egypt awarded LEED Gold certification
CallisonRTKL (CRTKL), has announced that its project, City Centre Almaza (CCA), has received LEED-Gold certification from the US Green Building Council (USGBC). The certification was awarded to one of the biggest retail malls in Egypt commending its sustainable design, construction, and operation standards.
The project comes in line with CRTKL’s, a global consultancy specialised in architecture, design and technology commitment to performance-driven-design organisation, applying technical advancements to enhance and optimise design solutions that contribute to a more sustainable and productive environment. With the use of sustainable strategies and designs, energy savings, water efficiency and CO2 emissions reduction, the shopping centre has been classified as one of high environmental quality.
CRTKL Shopping and Entertainment District’s Director, Nick Guy, said: “Throughout the first few years of a building’s lifetime, there is a lot of focus on the energy in use as shopping centres are heavy energy consumers. While designing the City Centre Almaza shopping centre, the design team operated with energy efficiency in mind as we saw significant opportunities for savings in line with region-wide efforts to tackle sustainability challenges.”
“One of our particular design focus areas was allowing the right amount of daylight into the building without creating unnecessary heat gain. As such, we adopted a predominately clerestory glazing strategy, keeping overhead roof-lights to a minimum. This gave good natural ambient light-levels with some shafts of sunlight allowed without compromising the environmental systems,” he concluded.
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