Real estate strategy, investment and corporate development | Ex McKinsey | Board member | Views expressed are personal
How do you weather-proof outdoor dining in the Middle East, where warm season only seems to be getting longer?! It’s November and it feels warmer than previous Novembers in the Middle East. For real estate developers and their tenants, that means that outdoor dining is less comfortable than it was in previous years. While there may be creative solutions like that in the photo below - a reasonably aesthetically pleasing “igloo” which combines air conditioned comfort and still retains the “outdoor” experience, for those of us real estate developers working on new projects or retrofitting existing developments with outdoor / open air sections, we need to take into account that seasonality is moving against us, with more warm months. I like what Gate Avenue DIFC had designed for their restaurants (before their current redevelopment) - an indoor and outdoor section for all of the restaurants along their air conditioned spine. So diners could eat indoors year round with the option of outdoor seating during the cooler months. There are notionally other solutions like shading and cooling solutions and retractable doors / sections. Have you seen any creative solution that extends / enhances the ability to have outdoor seating during warm season?
Conscious Cities | Regenerative Design, Creative Strategy, Mindfulness, Placemaking
1moYou must visit Singapore so we can see some of the solutions being implemented here…perhaps there is some cross over..: