Author Archives: ARDH Collective

Eco-friendly building materials for hot climates: lessons from the UAE:   Searches for “eco-friendly building materials” and “green building materials” usually show images of timber houses, green roofs and mild climates. Hot, arid regions like the UAE work very differently.   High temperatures, intense sun, dust, sand and heavy cooling loads all shape what “eco-friendly”Continue reading “Eco-Friendly Building Materials for Hot Climates | Lessons from the UAE”

Breeze blocks, also called ventilation blocks, screen blocks or claustra, have returned to contemporary architecture and interiors. They appear in courtyards, façades, stairwells and gardens, reshaping light and air rather than simply closing spaces off. In hot climates like the UAE and wider Gulf, breeze block walls are more than a visual reference. When designedContinue reading “Breeze block wall ideas for shade, privacy & airflow.”

Bio-based building materials have moved from experimental to mainstream in global architecture and construction. Timber, straw, hempcrete, cork and mycelium all now appear in real projects, not just research papers and exhibitions. For the UAE and the Gulf, the landscape is different. The region’s defining agricultural resource is the date palm, and with it, theContinue reading “Bio-based building materials in the UAE: turning date seeds into solid surface.”

Low-carbon concrete has moved from a niche sustainability topic to a core part of how projects are assessed, funded and approved. For the UAE, where concrete underpins almost every building and piece of infrastructure, it is one of the biggest levers for reducing embodied carbon without changing typology or programme.   ARDH Collective’s answer toContinue reading “Low-carbon concrete in the UAE: from idea to specification”

The phrase “sustainable building materials in the UAE” is now appearing in briefs, supplier searches and ESG conversations. The reality on the ground, though, is that most projects still rely on conventional concrete, imported aggregates and anonymous composites.ARDH Collective sits in the middle of that gap. We are a UAE-based manufacturer turning desert sand andContinue reading “Sustainable building materials in the UAE: what’s actually available today.”

You and I, both as a consumer and designer are inhabitants of a ‘plasticised’ world. Plastic and its fragments are omnipresent, it is embedded in the products we use and is traveling into the bodies of marine life and our bodies as well, by rapidly rising through the food chain (Seltenrich, 2015). Plastic symbolises theContinue reading “Plasticised: Navigating our plastic ridden planet.”