A recent conversation with Kim Nielsen, design director of the Dubai-headquartered , got me thinking. Kim was showing me a recently completed villa project in <b>Al Mizhar </b> (above) where he and his team have created an incredibly contemporary-looking home that is still, fundamentally, Arabic in its design. At a cursory glance, the villa looks like it might belong in northern Europe - it's all white walls, wooden interiors, straight lines and open spaces. A closer look, however, reveals that it has all the key elements of traditional Arabic courtyard architecture, just packaged in an unusual way. All the necessary elements are in place: a central courtyard, a majlis, sleeping quarters that have been separated off, and a kitchen and maid's room that can be accessed from a separate entrance. Most importantly, in spite of being incredibly open and transparent, the design has an inherent sense of privacy and discretion - arguably the most important feature of local housing. It turns out that AK Design is getting an increasing number of requests for this kind of contemporary architecture, predominantly from young, Emiratis professionals. But - and this is what got me thinking - Kim says that there has been some difficulty getting municipality approval for these kinds of designs. Apparently, there's a concern that they don't look Arabic enough. As Kim rightly says: "I think there's a simplified view of what Arabic actually is." It is clear that perceptions of local design need to evolve. Otherwise, you end up regurgitating the same old clichés - or "copying the past as a pastiche", as Kim puts it. Wind towers were all good and well in a pre-AC age, but tacking them onto modern architecture for the sake of looking 'authentic' seems like a bit of a cop out. Likewise the trusted mashrabiya motif. Here's an exercise - count the number of hotels that you go to where the designer has used mashrabiya-style patterning in an attempt to "localise" the design. In most cases, efforts to develop a contemporary Middle Eastern design aesthetic have stopped there. Architecture should respond to the needs of its users and to the constraints and particularities of the environment in which it exists. AK Design's Al Mizhar villa does both - and in doing so, offers an interesting glimpse of what contemporary Arabic architecture could look like. Or one version of it, at least. For more information and pictures of the Al Mizhar villa by AK Design, see our slideshow at http://www.thenational.ae/lifestyle/house-home/dubai-home-shows-an-ultra-modern-approach-to-arabic-architecture <b>• Selina Denman<br/></b>