Sustainable Design of Makkah Restaurant, Lahore, Pakistan
Makkah Restaurant is the first restaurant in Pakistan to have a sustainable design. The restaurant is designed on three floors. Ground floor serves as formal dining and bar activity. First floor serves as family dining and children play area. Second floor is for preparation of food and staff residences.
There is crisis of electricity in Pakistan. The short fall is 3000 MW. Power shutdown is 12 hours in summer. It is very hard in Pakistan to run a successful business in this atmosphere. People mostly use the diesel generators to generate electricity, but this is very expensive due to high fuel price and this also reduces profit margin substantially.
To overcome the shutdown of electric supply, solar energy panels are installed on roof of the building to overcome this difficulty. LED energy saving lights and wall fans are used in interior as they consume very little electricity and are easily functional with solar light.
To control echo problem wall paneling is used with different size niches. Interior colors are light beige and dark wood color. Different paintings, posters of brands & products and wallpapers are used in the niches in the wall.