Local Resources –– New Materials

‘Lo­cal Re­sources - New Ma­te­rials’ is a joint re­search pro­ject con­duct­ed to­gether with Asst. Prof. Da­nie­la Ot­t­­mann / En­vi­ron­­ment and De­sign / Fa­cul­­ty of Ar­chi­tec­­tu­re and Ur­ban Plan­n­ing / GU­tech Oman, and fund­ed by the Ger­­man Aca­dem­ic Exchange Ser­vice (DAAD).

The main mis­sion for this joint re­search pro­ject is to ex­plore and ex­per­i­ment with lo­cal­ly avai­l­able tra­di­tio­n­al ma­te­rials and tech­nolo­gies, in or­der to in­vent 'new ma­te­rials' that meet the needs of a cli­mate-re­spon­sive built en­vi­ron­ment of the pre­sent and fu­ture in Oman.

In or­der to re-de­vel­op the tra­di­tio­n­al knowl­edge of con­struc­tion ma­te­rials and tech­niques in Oman to­wards fu­ture-proof 'new' ma­te­rials, the metho­d­ol­o­gy of the re­search­plat­form BAU KUNST ERFIN­D­EN (Build­ing Art In­ven­tion) is be­ing ap­plied. Ex­pe­ri­ences of the de­vel­op­ment of High-Tech-Low-Bud­get-Ma­te­ri­a­ls, Ma­te­rial-sys­tems and in­tel­li­gent sur­faces are be­ing used to com­bine tra­di­tio­n­al build­ing ma­te­rials with ad­di­tio­n­al func­tions like light-re­flec­tive and en­er­gy-sav­ing/con­duct­ing prop­er­ties. Hence­forth new ma­te­rials can be estab­lished that con­tribute to a en­vi­ron­men­tal and cli­mate con­s­cious build­ing in­dus­try. This ap­proach may al­so thrive to­wards ca­pac­i­ty build­ing mea­sures and the in­cu­ba­tion of 'new' in­dus­tries in the de­vel­op­ing coun­try of Oman.

The co­op­er­a­tion be­tween Ger­many and Oman fo­cus­es on a dia­log be­tween tra­di­tio­n­al ap­pli­ca­tion strate­gies of lo­cal­ly avai­l­able re­sources in Oman, Do-It-Your­self strate­gies, new tech­nolo­gies and the estab­lish­ment of it­er­a­tive trans­fer pro­cess­es and tech­nolo­gies. Mixed teams of stu­dents, re­search­ers and ed­u­ca­tors from Ger­many and Oman will conduct joint work­shops, field-trips and exchange pro­grams that sup­port ap­plied meth­ods of pro­ject work and re­search. Pro­fes­sio­n­al dis­course will be fur­ther en­hanced through sci­en­tif­ic, de­sign-ori­ent­ed and artis­tic pre­sen­ta­tions and lec­tures based on the unit­ing con­cept of „ma­k­ing is kno­wing“.