Foster + Partners’ designs for Southern Dunes pays homage to the Nabataean heritage of the Red Sea coast. 
The award-winning British architects chose to use materials appropriate for its desert location, and to reduce its dependence on artificial cooling. To achieve this, the designs avoid high thermal mass materials such as stone or concrete, which absorb and store heat, and instead use simple lightweight materials. 
These building materials also easily construct together and were fabricated offsite to speed up the construction process, creating an incredibly energy efficient construction process.