About Shady Attia

Professor Shady Attia is an architectural engineer and LEED®AP working on decision support for sustainable building design and construction. His area of expertise is zero energy buildings and regenerative design. In 2014, he joined Liège University and established the Sustainable Buildings Design (SBD) Laboratory. The lab is focused on integrative sustainable development and research in buildings’ energy efficiency, thermal comfort, and indoor environmental quality, energy simulation, rating systems, performance auditing and liability.

Are Green Roofs a Viable Option for the Middle East?

Urban green roofs have long been promoted as an easy and effective strategy for beautifying the built environment and increasing investment opportunity. The building roof is very important because it has a direct impact on thermal comfort and energy conservation in and around buildings. Urban green roofs can help to address the lack of green space in many urban areas. Urban green roofs provides the city with open spaces that helps reduce urban heat island effect and provides the human population on the site with a connection to the outdoors. However, we must differentiate between two types of urban green … Continue reading

Green Buildings Certification in MENA – Issues and Challenges

Green building rating systems are increasingly gaining attention in the building industry in the MENA region. During the last 15 years, there has been a regional trend in developing and applying green building ratings systems. In several countries such systems have been developed in an attempt to follow the international green movement. For example, the Pearl Building Rating System (PBRS) was founded in UAE in 2007, the Green Pyramid (GPRS) and ARZ Building Rating System in Egypt and Lebanon respectively were founded in 2008, the Edama was proposed in Jordan in 2009 and Qatar Sustainability Assessment System (QSAS) was founded in 2010.  … Continue reading