Qatar's Ambitions in Sustainable Development Underscored at MIPIM 2012

Doha, March 13 (QNA) - The 2012 edition of Marche International des Professionnels d'Immobilier (MIPIM), the world's largest real estate exhibition, held in French city of Cannes, staged a national pavilion for Qatar as well as a groundbreaking thought leadership event, the two-day Qatar Urban Forum. The venue was a showcase for Qatar's pioneering investment in urban planning, which combines traditional methods and modern technology aimed at safeguarding both the environment and cultural identity. Msheireb Properties' involvement in MIPIM 2012, was described as a resounding success by organisers, exhibitors and visitors alike. Visitors to MIPIM in 2012 were hugely impressed by the imagination and synergies of Qatar's world-class development companies, as well as the depth of the insights shared by the global industry speakers participating in the first-ever Qatar Urban Forum. Realising sustainable urban development is one of the key challenges facing present and future generations, and Msheireb Properties is showing through initiatives like the pavilion and forum that it has a leading role to play in addressing this challenge." Titled 'Sustainable Architecture and Urban Development', the Qatar Urban Forum examined two issues at the heart of progressive urban planning - realising sustainability and the green agenda, and retaining cultural, heritage and national identity in the context of rapid globalisation and modernisation. The stimulating thought leadership event was the setting for two keynote presentations and four panel debates with more than a dozen internationally renowned architects, designers and urban innovators. Lord Richard Rogers, the 2007 Pritzker Architecture Prize Laureate, best known for pioneering buildings such as the Centre Pompidou, Paris, and the headquarters of Lloyd's of London, opened the forum on the first day of MIPIM with a presentation titled 'Sustainability, Energy and Green Development', which explored the themes of many of his award-winning designs. He noted that Qatar had become a genuine world leader in sustainable building. Technological innovation was seen as key to managing the environmental impacts of our expanding cityscapes in the second panel debate on day one, which welcomed the insights of Ken Yeang, inventor of the 'bio-climate' skyscraper, Bill Dunster, environmental strategist and founder of ZEDfactory, and Yousef Al Horr, founder and chairman of Gulf Organisation for Research and Development, one of Qatar's leading national institutes. Commenting on the success of the Qatar Sustainability Assessment System (QSAS), an original green building code developed in Qatar, Yousef Al Horr argued that effective regulation was needed to better integrate respect for the environment in urban design. "Since we started implementing the QSAS in Qatar, more and more projects have adopted sustainability." Ken Yeang, meanwhile, stressed the importance of education: "I believe that within 10 years green design will become second nature for students." Angela Brady, President of the Royal Institute of British Architects and a director at Brady Mallalieu Architects in London, began day two of the Qatar Urban Forum with a keynote presentation on the central role played by history, culture and the environment in shaping urban landscapes. "What makes good cities is the richness of their culture and the diversity of their people," she said, adding that recognising "the historic environment in contributing to quality of life" was essential to ensure that our cities remain attractive places in which to live. The final and fourth session of the inaugural Qatar Urban Forum examined people's emotional attachments to cities on the theme 'A City I Love: Ownership, Character and the Evolution of Cities'. Reflecting on the success of the forum, CEO of Msheireb Properties Eng. Issa M. Al Mohannadi said: "The Qatar Urban Forum gave equal priority to solutions as well as concepts, and as a result will have made a very practical contribution to the work of many people in our industry. The first-ever Qatar Forum received a tremendous amount of positive feedback from participants and guests and will provide a template for future, more ambitious forums in Qatar and at other international industry events." (END)