Three baking schoolyards turned into shaded rooms children actually use at break.
Program
School retrofit
Location
Al Warqa, Dubai
Area
3 courtyards
Status
Built 2023
The school's three courtyards logged surface temperatures above 60 °C by mid-morning; break time happened indoors, in corridors. The retrofit budget was modest and the answer wasn't air conditioning — it was section.
Deep fabric canopies on steel, planted ghaf groves in structural soil, and light-coloured ground that stopped storing the morning's heat. Surface temperatures fell by more than 20 degrees, and the school reports the courts are now contested territory at break — the correct metric for public space.
