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Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to explore the extent of tall buildings development in Kuwait and to look at the issue of how sustainable and green design principles and strategies are disseminating in the society oftall buildings designers. Specifically the paper investigates how those designers are looking at this issue and what is the drive or incentive behind adopting some of the green design technologies and strategies in their projects. It also looks at the process of designing tall buildings and the obstacles and potential opportunities for making this process green and sustainable. The paper sets forth a hypothesis that green design parameters, such as LEED, may not be directly applicable to the Kuwaiti context. The assumption is a more appropriate system of LEED must be devised for Kuwait, similar to the UAE Green Building Council, for example. While this appropriate system is based on universal rules and guidelines for green design, it must take into consideration, and respect, local systems and conditions. These could be human, cultural, economical and technical. In this paper, the focus is on the designers oftall buildings, since they represent the experts on the matter. The paper uses both quantitative and qualitative data to prove or disprove this hypothesis. The data collection tool used is interview survey with a representative sample of tall buildings designers in Kuwait.
Keywords: Green Design, Tall Buildings, Leed, Building Codes & Regulations, Designer's Perspective.
INTRODUCTION
There is a growing worldwide belief that tall buildings have to become greener. On November 2009, TAIPEI 1 01 , the world's second tallest building, announced that it will apply for the LEED certification, aiming to become the first skyscraper obtaining the LEED Gold certification for existing buildings (CTBUH 2009). Very few tall buildings in Kuwait have received LEED certification to date. In fact, there is only one tall building that has received LEED pre-certification until now. Few others are in the pipeline. Giving the ever growing global trend of greening tall buildings, Kuwait seems to be lagging behind even its closest neighbor Dubai. This is despite the increasing tall buildings development in Kuwait. In order to find out the main reasons behind this phenomenon, one has to look at the involved parties in the design...