Dubai Municipality and Dubai Expo City Real Estate Development sign a memorandum of understanding to establish the Center for Innovation and Research in Building and Construction
Dubai, 17 December / WAM / Dubai Municipality signed a memorandum of understanding with Expo City Dubai Real Estate Development to establish a center for innovations and research in building and construction materials, systems and technologies at Expo City Dubai, to support new generation technologies in construction, urban development and future city systems.
The agreement – which was signed in the presence of Her Excellency Reem Al Hashemi, Minister of State for International Cooperation and CEO of the Dubai Expo City Authority, and His Excellency Eng. Marwan bin Ghalita, Director General of Dubai Municipality – consolidates Dubai’s position as a global platform for innovating sustainable city solutions and the future of urbanization.
The center will work to activate Expo City Dubai as a living laboratory for advanced innovations, to support research and development that promotes sustainable development, as both parties are committed to developing the Sustainability Innovations Complex in Expo City Dubai Real Estate Development, an initiative launched by the city with the Ministry of Economy and Tourism and a pioneering center for sustainable industrial growth, green technologies and future business systems.
The center will contribute to linking innovations to practical applications before putting them on the market, as it will include an experimentation area designated for building and testing experimental models, and will support its work with a regulatory testing environment (sandbox) that constitutes a regulatory framework that allows limited-scale practical testing of building and construction technologies and innovations in an environment subject to the supervision of Dubai Municipality and other regulatory bodies.
The center will also contribute to the preparation of standards and accreditations, testing and dissemination of advanced technologies, including innovative building materials, robotics, modular construction, 3D printing of buildings, construction with light metal frames, digital twins, artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, building information modeling, and sustainability and carbon neutrality solutions, in addition to supporting experimental regulatory environments in the field of building and construction to accelerate the safe application of these technologies in the construction market.
Engineer Maryam Obaid Al Muhairi, Executive Director of the Building Regulatory and Licensing Agency in Dubai Municipality, said: “This partnership consolidates Dubai Municipality’s efforts in developing a smart, sustainable and advanced building sector globally. The establishment of the center in Dubai Expo City will support the municipality’s direction towards encouraging the use of modern and innovative building materials and systems with the aim of raising the quality of buildings, reducing construction time and cost, reducing reliance on unskilled labor, reducing emissions and reducing construction waste, in addition to expanding digital construction through the use of data and digital systems during the construction stages such as building information modeling.” The digital twin, the Internet of Things, and artificial intelligence will provide the municipality and other regulatory bodies with information and analyzes that help in making regulatory decisions in the building and construction sector, in addition to providing services related to advanced conformity tests for modern building materials and systems.”
For his part, Engineer Ahmed Al Khatib, CEO of Real Estate Development and Delivery at Expo City Dubai, said: “The establishment of the “ConTech Valley04” center in Expo City will contribute to advancing innovation in the construction sector, which will enhance the path of innovative and responsible development at the level of Dubai and the UAE. As part of the Sustainability Innovation Complex, the center will attract pioneers of innovative urban planning, providing the latest sustainable solutions that benefit the sector as a whole, making it an integrated system that promotes progress and environmental preservation.”
The two parties will cooperate to enhance the growth of the system through organized partnerships with emerging companies in addition to investors and academic and research institutions. The cooperation will also include the implementation of joint training programs, capacity-building initiatives, global knowledge exchange activities, and collaborative research, all of which aim to develop talent and support the innovation economy, in addition to cooperation in hosting global summits, forums and partnerships that highlight Dubai’s leadership in smart, sustainable and future urban development.
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