Malak Ali Hassan is a success by anyone’s standards. At 33, she is already the chief executive of her own company and making waves in the country’s architecture scene.
At next week’s Cityscape Abu Dhabi, one of the UAE’s largest property shows, she will exhibit her environmentally friendly design for stand-alone villas with her quantity surveying and architecture firm 3Dimension.
“For me, the environment is very important,” she says. “And if I can help protect it, then I want to.”
One of her ambitions is to establish a “green” organisation made up of female architects and designers that will push the case for new buildings in the UAE to be more sympathetic to the environment.
“There is a need to bring more women to the front lines,” says Hassan, who has a degree in architectural engineering and a master’s in urban planning. “The UAE is trying to develop the environment sector, and in the Government it is getting better, but I think we need to go harder in the private sector. If more women were brought to lead and set an example, it would help.”
Hassan’s green designs use insulating building blocks, clever shading and a garden irrigated using grey water (recycled water). At Cityscape she hopes to sell the designs to individual buyers, or to sign a building deal herself.
Hassan is one of eight children who grew up with their father after their mother passed away when she was young. Her father, who grew up in Dubai when there was no official school system, impressed upon her the importance of education.
“My father loved education, but he didn’t even go to school. Now he is a humanitarian person, and anyone that comes to him and says they want to study, he will give them money to study. He always told us how important education is.”
* Mitya Underwood