A Study of How Heritage Characteristics Can Be Incorporated into The Internal Design of Saudi Hotels

Saudi Arabia is highly regarded among other societies and is renowned for its oil and wealth. However, the positive impression of the country is not only a reflection of its culture. Saudi Arabia also has a very interesting history and abundant culture and heritage. Every year, a large number of foreign visitors travel to the country for diverse reasons, including business and tourism and mostly for Hajj and Umrah. However, most of the existing hotels do not celebrate the Kingdom’s culture and heritage. It is essential for the country to consider developing heritage hotels in order to share its heritage and culture. This would be an excellent opportunity to contribute to the tourism industry, as well as to reflect the country’s history accurately. This study examines the role of interior design and the use of heritage elements and motifs in contemporary hotels in Saudi Arabia. Hotels have a unique opportunity to promote the identity of the city and at the same time they receive different types of visitors with different languages, cultures and religions. Therefore, hotel design should be suitable for all visitors from different backgrounds, while respecting the Saudi Arabian aesthetic, social/cultural, economic and environmental values, relating to concepts of the contemporary. Hotels are among one of the best means for supporting tourism and can add value to the nation’s culture, society and economy. Designs for contemporary heritage hotels must include the creation of innovative elements that relate to the surrounding environment and reflect the traditions of the area. Moreover, the focus on the lobbies is a sub-case of the heritage elements within the hotels that will form the basis for insight into other areas. This study describes the effect of using heritage elements and motifs in the interior design of contemporary hotels in Jeddah in Saudi Arabia. Although a large amount of research has been conducted on interior design, there has not been a focus on the use of heritage elements in hotel interiors by hotel management and customer services. Consequently, a reconsideration of traditional elements and motifs is recommended when designing tourist hotels in Saudi Arabia, in order to take advantage of global influences rather than resist them, to maintain traditional heritage and to reawaken confidence in heritage and revive and protect it for future generations. This study aims to explore how heritage characteristics can be incorporated into the internal design of Saudi hotels in the 21st century that describes the heritage elements and motifs of Jeddah in Saudi Arabia, and to develop a framework to help interior designers with this integration. Therefore, this study seeks to fill the gaps in the existing literature to explore the meanings of heritage and traditions that can be represented in the interior design of contemporary hotels. This thesis only covers interior design aspects and is not an architectural guide. A theoretical framework and socio-ecological framework is adopted to identify and anticipate the future of contemporary heritage hotels in the Saudi market. This thesis develops the consideration of accepted heritage design and its potential link with higher customer sales and higher profits for hoteliers and the government. The findings of the research indicate that hotel visitors view the interior design of hotels in a complete and integrated manner, and express a desire to use heritage elements in accordance with the hotel requirements and development of the era. In contrast, for the owners income and luxury are the most important factors. Therefore, the results highlight that the use of heritage elements in hotels is formed through both the place and the aesthetic appearance of the interior design of the heritage hotel. The results also reveal that the use of heritage elements in the interior design of hotels is very important in meeting customer needs, creating value for the hotel. This study contributes to enhancing the awareness of hotel owners and interior designers regarding the use of heritage in the interior design of hotels, and provides a better understanding of consumers and tourists

Scan to BIM for 3D reconstruction of the papal basilica of saint Francis in Assisi In Italy

The historical building heritage, present in the most of Italian cities centres, is, as part of the construction sector, a working potential, but unfortunately it requires planning of more complex and problematic interventions. However, policies to support on the existing interventions, together with a growing sensitivity for the recovery of assets, determine the need to implement specific studies and to analyse the specific problems of each site. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the methodology and the results obtained from integrated laser scanning activity in order to have precious architectural information useful not only from the cultural heritage point of view but also to construct more operative and powerful tools, such as BIM (Building Information Modelling) aimed to the management of this cultural heritage. The Papal Basilica and the Sacred Convent of Saint Francis in Assisi in Italy are, in fact, characterized by unique and complex peculiarities, which require a detailed knowledge of the sites themselves to ensure visitor’s security and safety. For such a project, we have to take in account all the people and personnel normally present in the site, visitors with disabilities and finally the needs for cultural heritage preservation and protection. This aim can be reached using integrated systems and new technologies, such as Internet of Everything (IoE), capable of connecting people, things (smart sensors, devices and actuators; mobile terminals; wearable devices; etc.), data/information/knowledge and processes to reach the desired goals. The IoE system must implement and support an Integrated Multidisciplinary Model for Security and Safety Management (IMMSSM) for the specific context, using a multidisciplinary approach

Economic evaluation of seawater desalination : a case study analysis of cost of water production from seawater desalination in Saudi Arabia

As a result of the increasing scarcity of freshwater resources worldwide, many countries have resorted to the use of unconventional sources, of which seawater desalination is the most significant, for meeting the supply-demand gap. However, despite the recorded advances in desalination technologies of recent decades, desalination remains a very expensive operation and operators will be greatly assisted if reliable means of predicting the costs are available to aid effective decision making during planning of new plants or the operation of existing plants. To achieve this, it is important to fully understand the factors that contribute to desalination costs, which could then be used to develop appropriate models for predicting costs that can support budgeting and/or cost reductions decision making. Consequently, this project has investigated the development of such models for predicting monthly production costs using data from 16 operational plants in Saudi Arabia. Monthly and annual data spanning 2001 – 2010 were collected on total water production, type of desalination technique, sea water salinity, product water salinity, energy consumption, and total (capital and operational) unit cost of water production. Because of the way in which the data were archived, some of the variables only had the annual totals for some of the years, which made them unsuitable for the monthly scale adopted for the analyses. Consequently, disaggregation schemes based on several variants of the method of fragments widely used in hydrological studies were used to obtain monthly data from the annual data. Exploratory analysis showed that the monthly costs correlated most with the total water production, which then formed the lone independent variable for various tested regression model formulations. In general, an inverse regression model performed best during both calibration and validation. To enhance the usefulness of the predictive model for decision making, uncertainty limits of the predictions were constructed using a Monte Carlo simulation approach involving the seasonal, lag-1 autoregressive generation of equally likely realisations of the available historic records that have been transformed to remove the skewness. Extensive testing of the data generation technique showed that the assumed lag-1 auto-regressive dependence structure was adequate. This study thus provides for the first time a predictive model for costs of desalination in Saudi Arabia and its uncertainty range for effective budgeting and operational management. Although the models were developed using Saudi Arabia data, the fact that only one independent variable was used means that the replication of the methodology in other desalination-intensive countries can be readily carried out

THE IMPACT OF MASHRABIYA ON BUILDING ENERGY PERFORMANCE AND SOCIAL CULTURAL ASPECTS IN HOT CLIMATES

With the adoption and influence of Western designs, the architecture in Jeddah has experienced a loss in Hejazi architectural identity resident’s lack of privacy, contributing to the increase in energy consumption. In this study, a clear outline of the background to the causes and the effects of the increase in energy consumption will be elaborated focusing on the actual specific research area of Jeddah. In the construction of buildings, the shift from traditional to contemporary architecture resulted in the use of air condition (AC) to improve the indoor environmental quality due to the hot climatic conditions. The over-use of air condition in residential buildings led to the increase in energy usage which resulted in the government suspending the subsidy for electricity for residents followed by the increase in electricity tariffs in an attempt to minimise the usage of electricity. The research study aims to address the problems associated with the shift in architectural and the effect of operational systems by analysing the impact of mashrabiya on energy performance and identifying the social cultural needs of residents to preserve privacy and Hejazi architectural identity in residential buildings in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The research approach included an initial pilot survey to ensure the effectiveness of the research methods, questions, and overall research procedure. In this survey the researcher interviewed 3 residents who owned and built the villas for 3 days. The survey questions addressed mainly the three areas of the research which include energy consumption, identity, and privacy as well as mashrabiya. According to the pilot survey results all the residents interviewed acknowledged the fact that re-instating mashrabiya would provide privacy and enhance Hejazi architectural identity. In the area of energy consumption, the results indicated various factors that impact on energy consumption including the area, number, and behaviour of people. The relevant information identified from the literature review in relation to the objectives of this research, the historic facts about mashrabiya in terms of energy performance, particularly VII in Saudi Arabia, were combined with data collected through 261 online questionnaires. The respondents also included 8 specialists’ interviews from 4 government organisations and 48 residents from Albasateen district as well as observations and results from measurements which were then used to calculate the entry information to simulate the modelled case study villa. A range of simulations were than conducted to evaluate the building performance in terms of lighting and energy consumptions together with indoor environmental quality’ and social cultural related issues. According to the specialists’ interview results, 100% state that mashrabiya is the most significant Hejazi architectural element which provides identity. In relation to the residents’ privacy the online and interview results show 94% of respondents who claim to have privacy while from the observations and further investigation on privacy 100% use window treatment such as curtains, blackouts, and shutters to provide privacy which indicates that they lack privacy. Therefore, the use of mashrabiya will provide both identity and privacy. 9/28/21, 1:16 PM Form used for Progression Monitoring https://myresearch-direct.dmu.ac.uk/student/profile/form.aspx?personId=39646&parentId=7&qnrId=1261&returnid=43&returntxt=Return&returnqs… 3/4 One of the research areas included the energy usage, the results from simulation showed significant reduction in total energy usage in an existing villa case study compared with the villa case study with gypsum mashrabiya with large hole design. The results showed a decrease from 106, 114 kWh to 94, 115 kWh a total reduction of 11, 999 kWh (11%). It can therefore be concluded that if mashrabiya is reinstated it has great potential to restore not only the Hejazi architectural identity but will also provide residents’ privacy while reducing the energy consumption as a shading device in residential buildings in the city of Jeddah.The Government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabi