Roofing in the United Arab Emirates

Within a single lifetime the United Arab Emirates went from palm-frond houses, mud-brick forts and coral-stone merchant houses to a skyline of modern towers. Today almost all buildings have flat reinforced concrete roofs, increasingly governed by green building rules in Abu Dhabi and Dubai.

Climate and hazards

The UAE has extremely hot summers and humid coasts. Traditional builders answered with shading, ventilation and windtowers; modern codes focus on insulation and energy use.

Roofing history

Prehistoric. A house about 7,000 years old on Delma Island was built from palm trunks. Stone Age settlement in the territory dates from about 6000-3200 BC, and Al Ain, the first recorded large settlement, has Bronze Age (3200-1300 BC) buildings of cut and dressed stone. Qanat irrigation was introduced in the Iron Age (1300-300 BC).

Traditional towns. Building materials came from the surroundings: coral, mud, stone, palm fronds and animal hair. Permanent inland houses were of mud brick strengthened with stones bonded by red clay and manure, finished with guss, a lime mixture of seashells, chalk and water. The Al Fahidi (Bastakiya) district of Dubai preserved 18th- and 19th-century houses with windtowers; it was largely demolished in the 1970s and 1980s and now consists of reconstructions.

Palm-frond houses. Bedouin families used palm-frond arish shelters in summer. In the 1950s Dubai had up to 4,000 arish houses for about 12,000 people, and Liwa about 800. After oil was discovered in the late 1950s, concrete, glass and steel replaced them. See barasti.

Modern. Dubai's town plan was commissioned in 1959 and the Dubai World Trade Centre tower completed in 1979. New buildings are reinforced concrete, sometimes styled to look like mud or coral.

Traditional and vernacular roofs

• Arish / barasti: palm-frond walls and roofs, with frames reportedly of mangrove poles imported from East Africa.
• Flat roofs on poles: coral-stone and mud houses roofed with imported poles, mats and earth (see chandal-roof).
• Barjeel (windtower): vertical shafts of Iranian origin that catch breezes and draw air down into rooms. Nearly all reconstructed barjeels today are ornamental.
• Bait al sha'ar: woven goat- or camel-hair tents of the Bedouin.

Roofing today

Flat reinforced concrete roofs dominate housing and commercial building, with heat-resistant materials increasingly used.

Codes, standards and regulation

• Estidama Pearl Rating System (Abu Dhabi): developed by the Abu Dhabi Urban Planning Council; since autumn 2010 all new developments must achieve at least one Pearl, and government buildings (and, per the federal portal, residential villas) two.
• Dubai green building regulations: 79 specifications, mandatory for all developments.
• Federal green building standards: approved by the UAE Cabinet in 2010 and applied first to government buildings from early 2011.

Industry

The arish revival is being studied by researchers such as Sandra Piesik.

Notable roofs

• Al Fahidi (Bastakiya), Dubai: reconstructed windtower houses.
• Al Hisn Fort, Sharjah, and Hatta: heritage reconstructions including arish.
• Al Ain: Bronze Age stone buildings and tombs.

Local roofing terms

• arish - palm-frond house or shelter
• barjeel - windtower
• guss - lime finish of seashells, chalk and water
• bait al sha'ar - "house of hair", Bedouin tent

Sources and gaps

Detailed climate data, data on roofing material shares, roof-specific requirements within the green building systems, and information on modern roofing materials and Emirati roofing manufacturers were not found in published sources.