Residential
Lumina
Residence
Location
Dubai, UAE
Year
2023
Area
1,840 m²
Status
Completed
01
Hero View
THE PROJECT
The Lumina Residence is a study in restraint — a home designed to outlast generations, built from materials with verified low-carbon credentials, and shaped by a spatial language that will feel neither dated nor fashionable in fifty years.
The clients approached Arch Studio with a clear mandate: build a home that performs at net-zero, uses only materials with verified low-carbon credentials, and creates spaces that feel as generous and alive in fifty years as they do today.
The 1,840m² plot in the Al Barari district of Dubai presented both opportunity and constraint. The desert climate demanded
rigorous passive design to reduce cooling loads; the lush surrounding landscape offered a rare chance to create a home that felt embedded in nature.
Carbon reduction
Net energy surplus
PV surface area
Days to assemble CLT frame
DESIGN APPROACH
A Courtyard at the Heart of Everything
The building is organised around a central courtyard — a device as old as architecture
itself, and as relevant as ever in a hot climate. The courtyard draws cool air through the
house via a stack-effect ventilation system, reducing mechanical cooling demand by an
estimated 38%.
The structural system is cross-laminated timber — a choice that sequesters
approximately 1 tonne of CO₂ per cubic metre of material, and that gives the interior
spaces a warmth and acoustic quality that concrete and steel cannot match.
Architecture
Sustainability
Passive Design
The central courtyard, looking south
INTERIOR LANGUAGE
Every Surface Has a Story
The interior palette was developed in close collaboration with the clients over eighteen months of material research. The guiding principle: every surface should have a traceable origin, a material logic, a reason to be exactly what it is.
Floors are honed Omani limestone, quarried 400km from the site. Walls are a mix of polished micro-cement in warm sand tones and exposed CLT panels, left unfinished to reveal the grain and texture of the timber.
"We wanted a home that felt like it had always been there — as if the landscape had grown around it."
— The Clients
The living room — honed Omani limestone floors, exposed CLT panels
Project Gallery
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Kitchen
Master Bedroom
South Facade
Master Bathroom
Garden Terrace
Study
Outcome
Net-Zero Achieved.
Recognition Followed.
The Lumina Residence was completed in Q3 2023 and achieved LEED Platinum certification — the first private residence in the Al Barari district to do so. Post-occupancy monitoring confirmed the building performs within 4% of its modelled energy targets.
Certification
LEED Platinum
Energy Status
Net Zero Operational
Performance vs. Model
Within 4%
Annual Surplus
+12% to Grid
The south facade at dusk — PV fins integrated into the shading system
