Lecture by Florentine Visser, Less is more,…?…Learning from Aqaba Residence Energy Efficiency project in Jordan (AREE), National Winner of the ENERGY GLOBE AWARD 2007

Lecture by Florentine Visser, Consultant Sustainable Urban planning, Building and Policy Development. The lecture examines and questions the approaches to take in order to design buildings that have lower energy consumption. How energy aspects can contribute to interesting architectural design? The Aqaba Residence Energy Efficiency project in Jordan is taken as example to illustrate this. The lessons learned from this project will be shared, and how the principles implemented in this project could be applied to other projects: The MED-ENEC Energy Efficient Building Guidelines will be also briefly discussed. The AREE project, located in the 9th district of Aqaba city in Jordan, is an energy efficient building designed for hot dry climate. The building, 420 m² in size, is designed for residential purpose with the option of use as guest researcher loggings/study center. The design integrates sustainable features in order to reduce the electricity demand for cooling through three main strategies, which are the design and behavioral elements, the building materials, and renewable energy technology. For more information about the project: http://www.archined.nl/reportages/aqabaresidenceenergyefficiencyinjordan/ http://www.med-enec.eu/building-projects/pilot-projects/jordan/pilot-project-jordan About the Lecturer Florentine Visser is based in Cairo for Egypt for the MED-ENEC project implemented by GIZ – International Services since 2010. MED-ENEC promotes Energy Efficiency in the Mediterranean construction sector to reduce CO2 emissions. Project activities include Policy, Business and Financing Development, and Awareness and Technical Support to improve the Energy Performance of building projects. Besides her professional background as an architect and building engineer, she is specialized in water and energy efficient design, construction and policy development and implementation for dry hot climates. She is experienced in capacity building. In Egypt she was involved in the European Energy Manager (EUREM – Building Section) and in Jordan she conducted on site construction capacity building. Florentine got her Master of Science Degree at the Architecture and Urban Planning Department of the Building Engineering Faculty of the Eindhoven University of Technology, in the Netherlands, in 1994 and is a Registered Architect in the Netherlands.