Revitalising old traditions using modern innovation
Traditional date palm materials used to create food shelter at Al Ain Oasis, UNESCO World Heritage Site.
With resource shortages of both food and construction materials an ever present issue, world leading engineering practice Buro Happold has been working with London based architect Sandra Piesik of 3 ideas Ltd to create a sustainable solution to store food at the Al Ain UNESCO World Heritage site in the UAE.
The new shelter which utilises a palm leaf arch structure and fabric covering is the result of a six year research and development programme set up to demonstrate that using traditional materials and modern techniques can deliver cost effective, quick, environmentally sustainable solutions to social development programmes in economically challenged regions. Buro Happold and 3 ideas Ltd team carried out extensive research for client TCA Al Ain Historic Environment Department, in to the structural use of palm leaves and constructed trial structures, prior to designing the arched gridshell frame currently under construction at Al Ain Oasis.
There are a number of benefits to local communities using these simple structures; they use free readily available date palm leaves, usually a wasted agricultural by-product; the shelters are simple and quick to erect by hand without the need for mechanical plant on site; they leave no lasting residue as the tensile fabric can be reused and the leaves are of course biodegradable; and the skill set to create the shelters is locally available. In addition the potential for adaption of the design and its uses is wide; as well as storage these gridshell forms can also be used for educational, healthcare, communal and ancillary buildings wherever an abundance of the natural building material grows.
As well as using traditional materials, the traditional Arish technique is employed to bundle the palm leaves together; they are then lapped to form long circular shaped sections that can be curved into arched profiles to form structural members for the arch gridshell frames which are covered with tensile fabric. The final output is a modular grid shell construction of nine 8m x 8m modules which provides a total shaded area of over 600m².
It is hoped that the new structure at Al Ain will be just the start of an initiative to bring back traditional methods and materials as solutions to very modern issues across the Middle East and beyond.
