How Can Buildings Beat the Heat in a Desert City? Blend Ancient and Modern.

Dubai is full of futuristic, glazed skyscrapers. That’s problematic, from a sustainability perspective, in a city where temperatures regularly climb past 100 degrees Fahrenheit for several months each year. Air-conditioning can be so strong in the summer that some people wear jackets and scarves inside.

But a growing number of architects in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, which is currently hosting the United Nations climate summit, are now designing buildings in more sustainable ways, using the latest technology but also reintroducing age-old construction techniques that made buildings livable long before air-conditioning existed.

Those methods include orienting buildings away from the sun, building in accordance with wind patterns to increase natural ventilation, minimizing the use of glass, and incorporating traditional Islamic architecture to create shade, according to several architects who are based in Dubai or who have worked in the region.

“There used to be this obsession with glass skyscrapers in the last 15 years, which makes our city look like all of the other cities,” said AlZaina Lootah, an architect and researcher based in Dubai. Now, more new projects are incorporating traditional architecture. They use courtyards, terraces and narrow alleyways for shading and wind towers, pioneered by ancient Persians, to draw cool air to street level, she said.