Crossing the Borders Between Teaching, Research and Practice: A University Project for a Zero-Energy Building in Oman

Nikolaus Knebel

Article Details

Crossing the Borders Between Teaching, Research and Practice: A University Project for a Zero-Energy Building in Oman

Authors:

Nikolaus Knebel

Publisher:

KnE Social Sciences

Journal:

KnE Social Sciences Vol.3 Issue 27, pp.389-402

Document Type:

Article

Publication Date:

11/2019

Document Language:

English

Document ID (Org No.):

2001517751

pISSN:

2518-668X

Abstract:

 In Oman, like in all countries of the Gulf region, the building culture is in a crisis. The challenge to balance between a harsh outdoor climate and raised expectations for indoor comfort is not solved in a sustainable way, yet. Due to the availability of fossil fuel at very low costs, energy for cooling buildings is not used efﬁciently. This is not only wasteful, but also takes away the incentive to innovate. Consequently, the region’s building boom of the past decades was a growth without progress. Neither has signiﬁcant new knowledge been generated locally, nor has external knowledge been transferred to build local capacity in the ﬁeld of sustainable buildings. To break up this stagnation, The Research Council of the Sultanate of Oman (TRC) started in 2011tofundaprojectinwhichtheGermanUniversityofTechnologyinOman(GUtech) designed, planned, built, and currently operates and monitors a net-zero-energy residential building on its campus.ThispapershowsthatGUtech’sEcoHausisnotonly in a building as a product,but also a process of generating and transferring knowledge by combining teaching, research and practice within one university project.

Article Details

Crossing the Borders Between Teaching, Research and Practice: A University Project for a Zero-Energy Building in Oman

Authors: Nikolaus Knebel

Publisher: KnE Social Sciences

Journal: KnE Social Sciences Vol.3 Issue 27, pp.389-402

Document Type: Article

Publication Date: 11/2019

Document Language: English

Document ID (Org No.): 2001517751

pISSN: 2518-668X

Issues

Authors:

Nikolaus Knebel

Publisher:

KnE Social Sciences

Journal:

KnE Social Sciences Vol.3 Issue 27, pp.389-402

Document Type:

Article

Publication Date:

11/2019

Document Language:

English

Document ID (Org No.):

2001517751

pISSN:

2518-668X