Recognizing that awareness and education are essential to achieving its goals, Bee’ah operates the Bee’ah School of Environment (BSOE), which aims to develop a ‘greener future generation’ through environmental learning and approved tools that help children understand their vital role in environmental responsibility. To date, 174,000 children in over 210 schools across the emirate have participated in its ongoing programs.
Educational facilities and exhibition spaces within the new Headquarters Building will enable Bee’ah to further its community engagement programs and outreach initiatives.
Bee’ah’s new Headquarters will enable the company to manage and deliver further advancements in environmental services. These include even greater operational effectiveness of its Waste Management Centre which represents an entirely new approach to managing waste in the region with a number of industrial, commercial and residential waste diversion operations and facilities that include the Material Recovery Facility (the third largest in the world); the Construction & Demolition Waste Recycling Facility; the Tyre Recycling Facility (the first of its kind in the region using an environmentally-friendly cryogenic processes); the Compost Plant which processes organic and green waste into fertilizer; the industrial and wastewater lagoons to process liquid waste; the end-of-life vehicle and metal shredding facility as well as a number of other recycling and material processing facilities.
The Bee’ah Headquarters Building embodies these principles by providing the company with a administrative centre of sustainable construction of LEED Platinum Certification, with ultra-low carbon and minimal water consumption in operation and minimised material consumption in construction. The new building and site will also be used as a learning resource to demonstrate practical environmental awareness to the wider community.
The Headquarters Building has been designed with environmental considerations woven into every aspect of the design using a hierarchical approach to first limit the need to consume resources; where resources are required - to minimise their consumption; and finally to offset consumption of resources through the harvesting of renewable systems.
Designed in response to its natural environment to provide comfort for its occupants alongside minimising energy and resource consumption, the formal composition of the new Bee’ah Headquarters Building has been informed by its desert context as a series of intersecting dunes orientated to accommodate the prevailing Shamal winds, and developed to ensure the internal spaces are provided with ample high quality daylight and views whilst limiting the quantity of glazing exposed to the harsh sun.
The two primary dunes of the Bee’ah Headquarters Building house the public and management section (entrance lobby, auditorium, visitors education centre and gallery, and management offices), and the administrative section (departmental offices and staff café). The two dunes intersect and connect via a central courtyard that forms an ‘oasis’ inside the building - enhancing the natural ventilation and maximising indirect sunlight to the public and administrative spaces within.
These active and passive energy approaches are predicted to provide a 30% reduction in energy consumption. All power required for the building will be generated via low and zero carbon sources, principally from the adjacent Bee’ah Waste Management Centre’s conversion of municipal waste (that would otherwise decay in landfill) into energy, together with large arrays of photovoltaic cells incorporated within the site’s landscaping.
Bee’ah’s expertise and experience of recovered water recycling for non-potable use has enabled the design to be developed for exceptionally low potable water consumption. Internal fixtures and fittings will be installed to conserve water to exceptional levels. Native or adaptive species of vegetation will be incorporated to minimise the need for irrigation, with recovered and recycled non-potable water being used where irrigation is required and landscaping.
