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Smart Location & Linkage: In additional to the 11 point that collected from the existing case study
assessment, providing new access to the community to the main road and new access to Layan
community adding 4 additional point to be in total 15 points for this category.
Neighborhood Pattern & Design: This category has been improved to collect 24 point as the
modified community offer a required diversity in land use and building affordability, further to
enhancing walkability, green and open areas.
Green Infrastructure & Buildings: This category indicates a weakness in following the sustainable
design requirement, only 4 points obtained out of 31 total points allocated.
Innovation & Design Process: This category provides points to the new sustainable innovation not
addressed in LEED, and none of the 6 innovation points were able to be collected.
Regional Priority Credits: This category related to the regional practices and material, and only
one regional point out of 4 was collected.
In total the community collected 46 points and could be certified as a green community. This result
shows the effect of the applicable practices and modifications to enhance the community sustainability.
5. Conclusions
Recently and as part of the future vision, there is a strong trend toward passive design as an
effective part in sustainable design. This is a result of real consciousness in limited resources, global
warning and pollution problems where sustainability is the only solution for sustaining our very future
in the world. In line with this context, this study aimed to explore and improve a neighborhood in
Dubai, UAE toward more livable, sustainable community.
Al Waha community in Dubai was selected for the analysis, and three scenarios were adopted for
developing and obtaining more sustainable community. Analysis of the community covered two of the
sustainable urban design dimensions (1) Livability and (2) Environmental or thermal performance.
Livability analysis of the existing case study showed some clear weaknesses in land use diversity,
accessibility, walkability, landscaped area and building design diversity. These weaknesses were
covered in the adopted scenarios, through analyses using the two software packages, CityCAD and
IES‐VE, and the LEED (ND) checklist, showed clear improvements in all mentioned parameters.
Community improvement strategy and adopted scenarios covered a number of urban design
parameters including; (1) Land use diversity, (2) Accessibility, (3) Walkability, (4) Open public area and
Green spaces, and (5) Building height and design variety, which directly affected environmental or
thermal performance parameters covering solar gains and air temperatures.
The effect of the adopted scenarios (with modified computer models) on solar gains and thermal
performances have been studied and analyzed using the IES‐VE applications SunCast and ApacheSim
‐ Vista Pro. The results also showed that the livability level of the community was increased by
enhancing the land use diversity, accessibility, walkability, building height diversity and the green
areas. Furthermore, the effect of the adopted scenarios to enhance the community livability showed a
clear and positive effect on environmental and thermal performance by increasing the shading effect
and reducing indoor solar gains and air temperatures. Finally, the modified community that integrated
in the three adopted scenarios have been evaluated using the LEED Neighborhood and Developments
(ND) assessment tool v4, and the community was able to be certified as a “Sustainable Green
Community” through implementing all of the applicable practices.
Author Contributions: S.S. and H.A. conceived and designed the concept and outline for the paper; S.S. conducted
the analyses and wrote the paper; and H.A. supervised, and provided direction, sources, comments, and major
edits to the paper.
Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Investigating Optimization of Sustainability at an Urban Level: A Case Study of Dubai Neighborhoods
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