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TECHNOLOGY / ABU DHABI DIARIES
NATURAL SELECTION
Martin Valentine gives his perspective as the newly installed chief lighting designer for Abu Dhabi
During the long winter months in the UK and Europe, especially during the worst snow of December, I’ve had a lot of emails from friends asking me to describe what the sunshine feels like. It’s true, winter in the UAE is glorious and is the best time of year here for going out and about and actually being able to do things outdoors. However from January we also start getting some strange variations; this week for instance started with thick morning fog for two days, the next day we had heavy rain and then cold winds and clouds leading up to this weekend. This changeability will continue apparently until the end of February. There was even snow in Abu Dhabi last winter, so I’m keeping a wary eye out every morning before I set off on my intercity commute.
The fog here though is the thing which can really get the heart pounding. It’s well known that the quality of driving here is shall we say ‘variable’ at the best of times, but with the on- set of fog it’s like wacky races in the Twilight Zone! There appears to be four distinct driving styles that are adopted. The first I call the ‘Bronsons’; because they simply must have a death wish. These see fog as nice a fluffy blanket cosseting them so they can go just as fast as on a clear day, steaming along the fast lane at 160kph flashing all mortals to get out of their way.
The second style I call ‘UFOs’ as the best way they see to drive in fog is to put all their lights on; main beam, hazards, the works… all lights that is and I’m being seri- ous, except their actual fog lights!? So we have a lovely soup of flashing orange fog in front, little chance of judging their speed and distance as one approaches and then completely blinded once you get in front of them.
The third, and you’ll love this, I call the ‘Darwins’. There are not many of these left in the wild now, as they must be close to extinction. But these people understand the shortcomings of the UFOs and can see that all those lights create glare and confusion… so instead they drive at 80kph with ALL their lights switched off! The theory being, and I’m only guessing here, that they can
see more clearly what lies ahead and be- hind them… I can’t be the only one that can spot the slight flaw in their thinking am I? So when the two Charles’; the Bronsons and Darwins meet it must be one spectacular union, I should imagine sparks might fly. Which brings me onto the fourth style of people, whom have no special name, but when I see them, which is rare as alas they make up only around 1% of the road population, I usually exclaim ‘Thank God’ or something similar… these lovely sensible people actually press those buttons on their dashboard with the little fog light symbols
tors. Convincing the Government’s urban planning council, department of transport and police are just some of the steps we have gone through as well as the other local authorities and those responsible for maintenance, but even then, turning something into policy can still require many more hurdles. But even over the next few months the requirements of the sustain- able strategy will start to be implemented into various policy documents and both future and current Municipality projects are adopting the requirements to lower lighting levels and replacing fixtures with the latest LED technology and intelligent controls. We have, in Abu Dhabi, a new planning application system called Estidama (which is the Arabic word for sustainabil- ity). Similar in many ways to LEED in the US and BREEAM in the UK, Estidama is a sustain- able rating system for all projects in which credits can be achieved by undertak- ing certain improvements in building methods, materials and systems. Ratings are given in Pearls rather than Stars, with Pearl 1 to 5 status avail- able. However, unlike LEED or
on them. They drive a safe distance from similar people in front they have found and I hook on in behind them and join the long winding queue as far as I can. It’s like a motorway love-in. Anyway, back in the real world, my work the last month or so has centered around turning the Sustainable Lighting Strategy into a reality and getting it through various stages of approval within the Emirate. As in any country one has to get all the various national stakeholders on board and this has involved a number of presentations to vari- ous important committees. I feel it is only right to take the time to address people’s potential concerns on any initiative that aims to drastically reduce energy consump- tion by implementing new technology and reducing current lighting levels. Often similar ideas can have a detrimen- tal effect on lighting quality, safety and wellbeing, so myself and the Municipality have strived to show the benefits beyond the pure economic and environmental fac-
BREEAM, Estidama is a statutory system, the first such system in place in the Middle East and all buildings and community projects must achieve a minimum of Pearl 1 to get planning permission. Pearl 2 to 5 are then achievable through a range of optional credits to improve further the sustainable credentials of the scheme. I am currently working with the team responsible for Esti- dama on the next revision and update vari- ous aspects of the credits on lighting. Wher- ever possible these credits will be changed to reflect the requirements of the Lighting Strategy, so I’m very pleased to have vast aspects of the strategy’s far-reaching design requirements very soon embedded in this national statutory documentation. A similar exercise is happening to harmonise the new building codes including stringent internal lighting efficiency requirements, so things are happening fast here and we are all working together with the same aim. Oh, those contractors don’t realise what’s head- ing their way!
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