@ Urban Oman Conference

Aurel presented the 'Qurm' redevelopment project during the Urban Oman conference in Muscat. The lecture demonstrated how to develop and use parametric tools to incorporate environmental data into urban design. The software prototype optimizes the climatic performance of the building envelope, distribution of programme, accessibility within the plot and land-use. 

Abstract

Case Study PDO camp redevelopment
The PDO camp in Qurm was built in the 1970s and is prone to redevelopment. In the larger context of a research project on the urbanisation process of Muscat Capital Area it serves as a testing ground for innovative engineering, sustainable urbanism with the use of advanced parametric tools culminating in a sustainable design.

A holistic approach to sustainability
Sustainability - as defined by the UN millennium goals - needs to address multiple levels of life simultaneously: Only economical, ecological, social and cultural sustainability combined guarantee success. Therefore the case study of the PDO camp bases its economical viability on the integration of ecological, social and cultural parameters particular to the site, climate and culture of Oman.

Novel parametric design tools
Within the research project, we developed tools and methods to map these environmental, cultural and programmatic parameters into a cohesive urban design mechanism. This mechanism can be adapted and applied to any site in Oman or the Gulf region from the scale of a few houses to larger mixed use developments. Parametric tools interpret environmental data to generate urban design according to rules governed by climatic fitness criteria. The software prototype optimizes the climatic performance of the building envelope, distribution of programme, accessibility within the plot and land-use and, as a result, produces a coherent urban design that is considerably more sustainable than the “cooky-cutter” patterns of most developments in the Gulf.