Gulf Organisation for Research & Development (GORD) participated in the Humanization of Cities of Tomorrow Summit as the Official Sustainability partner.The event took place on October 4th – 5th 2011, at La Cigal Hotel in Doha, and enabled global city leaders, ministries and other influential figures to share their expertise and insights. 

Humanisation of Cities of Tomorrow Summit was endorsed by The Ministry of Municipality and Urban Planning of Qatar to reaffirm Doha’s commitment in creating livable communities of the future.”

Qatar is committed to the sustainable development of major upcoming projects – leaving a lasting legacy for generations to come. Sustainable technologies in construction materials and applications are essential for the increased demand in Qatar – however they must maintain the country’s commitment of protecting its environment. Key discussion points:

What the latest QSAS regulations mean to the industry? By the adoption of QSAS in the Qatar Country Specification (QCS) 2010 the country will not only set a minimum standard for built-environment but will also provide jobs for the local economy and preserve the country’s cultural identity.  The entire industry from small players to big players is given the opportunity to be rated and compared against each other using the normalized performance-based metrics.

How these standards will be implemented in Qatari projects to create a truly sustainable future? By teaching the industry to raise the bar of their designs; to be conscious of the criteria that matters most in the country; and to measure the outcomes of these designs to be able to be compared with various projects being implemented in the country utilizing the same measurement principles.  The statistics of these outcomes will then become the basis of the updates required for the standards, how much is required to tighten the values in order to impact and achieve the country’s vision of a sustainable future.

Case Study: What can be learned from internationally recognised sustainable projects? There is not much innovation in almost all of the designs of these projects since these projects are looking into complying with the features to get the credit.  There are also lots of skills, resources, and money needed to implement in local projects and most importantly the impacts of these changes to the country’s socio-economic and geo-political conditions because these internationally recognized rating system are usually based on their country’s way of life. QSAS therefore would like to address these issues by looking at the outcomes by allowing the projects to be developed based on performance rather than prescriptions and to provide normalized calculators and toolkits that can score the project with minimal need for expensive and tedious modeling and simulation services.

Qatar as the sporting hub of the Middle EastQatar is gaining prominence – at both regional level and all over the sporting world. In addition to the FIFA World Cup in 2022, it is hosting the World Handball Championships in 2015. Last year Qatar successfully organised 24 major sporting events – hosting sports teams and official delegations from the GCC, Middle East and other countries around the globe.

How QSAS can be applied to sporting facilities projects?  The Qatar National Olympic Committee presented to the International Sports Community the QSAS Sports as reference for the construction of its sustainable sports facilities.  The QSAS Sports was developed to be used in rating sports facilities of all types and sizes during multiple phases including design, construction, operations, and legacy use.  The first of its kind in the world, QSAS Sports has the capacity to rate sports facilities worldwide.

Ensuring the sporting facilities will be developed with the minimal environmental effects?  There is a wide range of programs and spaces that are included in each sports facility and as a result, QSAS Sports included different criteria measurements to accurately assess the environmental impact of a variety of facilities.  The measurement and scoring requirements for each criterion may vary according to the sports facility type(i.e. indoor, outdoor), functional component (i.e. competition areas, offices, locker facilities), event or building size, peak versus non-peak operations, local versus global considerations, and major events versus legacy usage.  Because sporting venues require different amenities, equipment, courses, and competition venues specific to the event, QSAS criteria are designed to avoid unfairly rewarding or penalizing a project for having functional components associated with a particular sport or sporting event.