As clean technology finds success in the commercial and industrial sectors, green implements are also finding their way closer and closer to home. In order to satisfy the growing demand for green urban architecture in particular, Israeli-Greek architect, Elias Messinas, is organizing a sustainable building workshop for Palestinian and Israeli architecture students.

Inspired by the late Egyptian natural building architect Hassan Fathy, Messinas will be heading a six-day architectural workshop from July 25 until August 1. The workshop, organized by the Greek-founded NGO Ecoweek, will involve workshops as well as practice sessions with some of the hottest green building architects in the world.

The guiding principle that motivates Messinas is that architects should be able to look to their surroundings in order to come up with suitable designs and materials for their buildings. As opposed to emulating Western designs for Eastern buildings, for example, local architects should work with appropriate technology, of which the late Hassan Fathy was a pioneer and advocate. “Young architects need to look at their community instead of looking at magazines,” says Messinas.

In Israel, the market for green buildings has allowed for some architectural firms to focus solely on green architecture, but the workshop aims to help put the Levant region of Israel and the Palestinian Authority on the green building map. Of the 120 people expected to attend the seminar, 15 to 20 of them will be fielded by the Palestinian Authority, which is run by the West Bank.

Though green architecture training is limited in the Palestinian Authority, the improvement of the economic and social reality of Palestinians in the last year has allowed for the resources required to develop and grow green building practices and the sustainable architecture industry.

Much of the world’s green technology was actually conceptualized in Israel. It’s only fitting that green technology is brought into the country’s urban setting.
View a previously written post by Mouli Cohen about Israel.