Eindhoven students visit Dubai

Twenty-six students from Eindhoven University of Technology visited Dubai at the end of March. As sponsor Royal Haskoning was able to provide an integrated excursion programme thanks to its intensive contacts in the construction world and the prestigious Dubai projects in which this international consulting firm is involved, such as The World, Palm Island Jumeirah and Jebel Ali. “Royal Haskoning maintains warm ties with Dutch universities of technology because our colleague Peter Luscuere is a professor at Delft University of Technology. So therefore the lines of communication are of course short,” says consultant Darryl Tjin.

Royal Haskoning consultants gave presentations about a large number of projects in Dubai and Bahrain that are being designed and executed, including the famous Wheel of Dubai. The LEED system, which is used as a classification system for energy consumption in buildings, was also explained. It is a subject that the students knew little about. The applicable sustainability regulations were also discussed because a decree was issued as of 1 January 2008 to the effect that sustainable building is obligatory in Dubai. Dubai wants to project an image worldwide as an environmentally aware and low CO2 city.

Like his comrades, building services student Evan Mertens was impressed by what he got to see during this working visit. “Everything here is big and imposing. Luxury high-rise apartments built some time ago do not have sufficient insulation because they date from the period when sustainability did not yet play a role. We visited an impressive district cooling plant that currently uses four cooling towers to cool nine high-rise apartment blocks. This centralized approach to cooling using cooling towers at temperatures around 40º C is a good step in the direction of sustainability. Now that Dubai is thinking and acting in more sustainable ways, buildings will be better insulated so therefore they will also not need to be cooled so intensively. That represents substantial savings in the energy costs. As students we were able to acquire a good understanding of the dimensions and systems that are involved in the construction and management of cooling towers for such high cooling demand.”

Contact: Darryl Tjin Wong Joe
+31 (0)24 3667 595
d.tjin@royalhaskoning.com

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