Construction of Green Buildings in Dubai International Academic City

Summary form only given. Dubai International Academic City (DIAC) located in the outskirt of Dubai is known to be the world´s only Free Zone dedicated to higher education. A regional base for premier international higher education institutions, DIAC is the world´s first dedicated tertiary cluster development. Spread across an area of 20 million square feet, the DIAC campus provides an intellectually inspiring environment for students and faculty. This thriving knowledge community was founded as part of a long-term economic strategy to develop the region´s talent pool, to accelerate its move into a knowledge economy. Benefits for DIAC partners include 100% foreign ownership, 100% tax free, 100% repatriation of profits. There are currently 31 international universities of higher learning from diverse regions including USA, Australia, India, Pakistan, Iran, Russia, Belgium, UK and France operating out of DIAC, catering to over 15,000 students coming from more than 100 countries. In an effort to go green, DIAC adopted stringent measures deployed in its phase III project such as installation of district cooling system, efficient landscaping and water features as part of water conservation efforts, Recycling, adopting sustainable procurement policy, conducting energy management initiatives (BMS system), utilization of daylight access, energy efficient lighting and building of shaded basement parking among others. The total cost of the phase III project was approximately AED 275 million ($75 million Dollars) covering over 600,000 square feet of built up area with additional 0.08% on the project cost for meeting LEED requirements needed for obtaining the certification during the design stage. These efforts led DIAC to achieve Silver LEED certification from US Green Building Council making it the second largest academic zone in the Middle East to achieve this award after King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). Now based on the added features in the con- - structed buildings, a total annual saving of AED 2.4 million will be achieved with electricity and irrigation water contributing 40% and 24% of the overall saving, respectively. Moreover, a major saving of 29% from district cooling system will be achieved annually within the academic buildings.