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40 years after "The limits to growth" the post oil boom economy affects countries in resource scarce environments like the Arabian Peninsula in the Middle East with expanding urbanisation. Those cities and architectures are based on fossil fuel driven technologies to control the surrounding arid hot climate for the benefits of human comfort. As a result skyscrapers are flourishing out of desert sands. Their ecological footprint in terms of resource consumption and the resulting emissions is nearly six planet earths, but celebrated by imported quantitative evaluation methods from North America or Europe with platinum medals for sustainable building practices. This dichotomy displays the global quest for ´sustainable´ development on the one hand side and the lack of integrating the inherent bio-climatic, socio-cultural and political-economical prerequisites of those newly developing countries on the other. The Urban Correlator provides a qualitative thinking model of involved parameters and associated strategies based on ecological system principles to combat the quest of sustainable urban and architectural development.

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As an educator, researcher and practitioner, Dr Ottmann is on a continuous exploration of understanding and innovating correlations between the built environment, people and nature in the field of urban design and architecture in various socio-cultural and bio-climatic environments and at universities in Germany, UAE, Oman, Australia and China.

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