The CARISMED project’s survey of the building environment in Palestine started from the general census conducted in 2017: in that year, there were 627,383 buildings of which 70 per cent were located in the West Bank and the remaining 30 per cent in the Gaza Strip, totalling more than one million housing units. A special focus was reserved for the Old City of Hebron (Al-Khalil), the oldest city in the world among those still inhabited, recognised as a UNESCO site since 2017.
As part of the Sida – Styrelsen för Internationellt Utvecklingssamarbete 2019-2021 programme, financed by the Swedish government, two historical buildings in Hebron’s Old Town have been restored: the Palestine Hotel, an iconic hotel in operation until the 1960s, which later became a shoe factory, has been transformed into a museum run by the Ministry of Tourism, with the aim of preserving and presenting the history and culture of Hebron’s Old Town. The Hebron Old Town Museum adopts a number of energy-saving solutions on a large scale, such as the Abu Khalf Promotion Centre, a tourist and cultural promotion space created to preserve and enhance Hebron’s heritage but also to host initiatives to strengthen the sense of community, aimed at people of all ages and ethnicities.
The Belgian government, on the other hand, supported the construction of the Hafith Al-Natsheh School, the first eco-sustainable public school in the region and the first in the entire Middle East to obtain platinum certification in the LEED – Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design programme, thanks to the use of a Solar Passive Design system. The building is able to reflect, transmit or absorb solar radiation by thermoregulating itself through the use of specially designed materials and architectural solutions, such as geothermal ducts, solar walls, sunshades and solar chimneys that work in synergy with active systems such as solar cells and rainwater collection tanks to make the water supply sustainable.
A pilot project has also been developed in Bethlehem, the first of its kind in the entire West Bank, which uses a passive solar system for heating and cooling: it is the administrative headquarters of the Bethlehem Multidisciplinary Industrial Park, a two-storey building of 1,000 square metres housing offices, classrooms, a computer lab and other services, which was created thanks to the cooperation between the Palestinian Ministry of Energy and PIEFZA – Palestinian Industrial Estates & Free Zones Authority, with the support of a French consultancy firm.
The headquarters of the Qattan Foundation in Ramallah houses both the offices and the cultural and recreational centre of the non-profit organisation and was built according to the Palestinian Guidelines for Green Buildings. The technologies used reflect its commitment to innovation and special measures were also used during construction to minimise air, water and soil pollution, noise and light pollution.
