Building What? The Challenge of Introducing Alternative Building Practices into the Aqaba Built Environment
(2005)The International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics
- Abstract
- For cities growing in conditions of extreme heat and aridity, adapting their building stock to reflect these environmental challenges demands a social as well as technical shift. Aqaba in southern Jordan is embarking on this process. Extremely poor building thermal performance coupled with a lack of public understanding of basic energy principles is contributing to social and economic stress in Aqaba. People are spending a large proportion of their income on air conditioning alone; up to 30%. Tests show that a slightly more expensive building than standard, comprised of alternative building materials and altered orientation can have a dramatic impact on cooling costs. In this case a 9% first-cost premium is returned in cooling cost savings... (More)
- For cities growing in conditions of extreme heat and aridity, adapting their building stock to reflect these environmental challenges demands a social as well as technical shift. Aqaba in southern Jordan is embarking on this process. Extremely poor building thermal performance coupled with a lack of public understanding of basic energy principles is contributing to social and economic stress in Aqaba. People are spending a large proportion of their income on air conditioning alone; up to 30%. Tests show that a slightly more expensive building than standard, comprised of alternative building materials and altered orientation can have a dramatic impact on cooling costs. In this case a 9% first-cost premium is returned in cooling cost savings in less than 2 years. Despite the promise of alternative building options, adoption of alternative building practices with improved social, economic and environmental performance; coined ?Beige? building in this context, will be highly unlikely without coordinated pressure. A combination of entrenched institutional behaviours, no regulatory forces, low levels of technical awareness and capacity, combined with public values incongruent with the concept of Beige-building means systemic change is needed to improve the Aqaba building stock. Assessing barriers through the lens of diffusion of innovation theory, ground-up, educational, regulatory and capacity raising mechanisms are suggested as key to promoting Beige building in Aqaba. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/1327045
- author
- Biggs, Che
- supervisor
- organization
- year
- 2005
- type
- H1 - Master's Degree (One Year)
- subject
- keywords
- building performance, energy performance, Beige building, innovation diffusion, Environmental studies, Miljöstudier
- language
- English
- id
- 1327045
- date added to LUP
- 2006-06-13 00:00:00
- date last changed
- 2006-06-13 00:00:00
@misc{1327045,
abstract = {{For cities growing in conditions of extreme heat and aridity, adapting their building stock to reflect these environmental challenges demands a social as well as technical shift. Aqaba in southern Jordan is embarking on this process. Extremely poor building thermal performance coupled with a lack of public understanding of basic energy principles is contributing to social and economic stress in Aqaba. People are spending a large proportion of their income on air conditioning alone; up to 30%. Tests show that a slightly more expensive building than standard, comprised of alternative building materials and altered orientation can have a dramatic impact on cooling costs. In this case a 9% first-cost premium is returned in cooling cost savings in less than 2 years. Despite the promise of alternative building options, adoption of alternative building practices with improved social, economic and environmental performance; coined ?Beige? building in this context, will be highly unlikely without coordinated pressure. A combination of entrenched institutional behaviours, no regulatory forces, low levels of technical awareness and capacity, combined with public values incongruent with the concept of Beige-building means systemic change is needed to improve the Aqaba building stock. Assessing barriers through the lens of diffusion of innovation theory, ground-up, educational, regulatory and capacity raising mechanisms are suggested as key to promoting Beige building in Aqaba.}},
author = {{Biggs, Che}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Building What? The Challenge of Introducing Alternative Building Practices into the Aqaba Built Environment}},
year = {{2005}},
}