Department of Architecture

Based on the argument that Cairo's recent urban development projects took place at the expense of the urban poor, this article aims to reconsider the processes of urban practices towards informal areas in Egypt. Until now, solutions put forth by the government have been informed by physically-oriented thinking: upgrading and merging informal areas within formal city districts, buffering them, or eradicating them. In this regard, these are approaches that ignore the social aspects of informal neighbourhoods. Moreover, there has been a long-term inability of the government and the private sector to provide enough affordable accommodation for a majority of urban dwellers. This article argues that one of the reasons for the discrepancies in informal neighbourhood policy originates in the way they are tackled in local architecture school curricula. Courses dedicated to informal areas focus on the gap between the designer's anticipations and actual use; this is partly due to the designer's deterministic attitude shaped by a long tradition in the profession. The article also offers some speciic suggestions for new courses that could help with these shortcomings.

The private universities in Egypt were initiated based on a presidential decree in 1996. Since then, a number of universities were open, with two different opposing perspectives for two different parties of stakeholders. The first was the hope of the educators and of many parents to achieve quality education away from the typical bureaucratic governmental university education that has been long deteriorated according to several factors out of scope of this paper. On the other hand, was the dream of a number of investors and other parents of less able and less qualified students to acquire a paidfor university graduation certificate with the least effort. The paper at hand tackles this issue. Aiming at evaluating the experiment of quality assurance of private education in Egypt. The paper dissects the concept of the private education in Egypt through reviewing an experiment of a quality assurance project of the architectural programs in one of the renowned private universities in Egy...

Smart Cities is a term used to describe a development based on information and communication technologies. ‘A Smart Community is a community that has made a conscious effort to use information technology to transform life and work within its region in significant and fundamental, rather than incremental ways. In the last two decades, the Smart Cities movement, spearheaded by software and hardware companies has injected advanced technology into the mix. European, Far Eastern and American initiatives are witnessed to implant infrastructures and develop communities that cope with and verify the concept. It is believed that “Smart city” as a concept has been introduced as a strategic method to encompass modern urban production factors in a common framework and to highlight the growing importance of Information and Communication Technologies, social and environmental capital in profiling the competitiveness of cities. The significance of these two later assets - social and environmental ...

Based on the argument that Cairo's recent urban development projects took place at the expense of the urban poor, this article aims to reconsider the processes of urban practices towards informal areas in Egypt. Until now, solutions put forth by the government have been informed by physically-oriented thinking: upgrading and merging informal areas within formal city districts, buffering them, or eradicating them. In this regard, these are approaches that ignore the social aspects of informal neighbourhoods. Moreover, there has been a long-term inability of the government and the private sector to provide enough affordable accommodation for a majority of urban dwellers. This article argues that one of the reasons for the discrepancies in informal neighbourhood policy originates in the way they are tackled in local architecture school curricula. Courses dedicated to informal areas focus on the gap between the designer's anticipations and actual use; this is partly due to the designer's deterministic attitude shaped by a long tradition in the profession. The article also offers some speciic suggestions for new courses that could help with these shortcomings.

1 ABSTRACT Ontological city planning theories suggest that the definition and location of the city heart (AKA CBD and City Center) is the geographically centered, economically based, and activity vibrant spot of the city. In Cairo, the heart has applied this actuality since its foundation in 969 AD, and has moved or transformed and changed size and location with every major shift in Cairo's planning milestones. However, January 2011 revolution in Egypt has identified a new parameter to the theory of the deteriorated heart; suggesting a new hypothesis: "the heart of the city is related to socio-cultural attributes rather than to the physical planning measures". Incidents of the revolution and its consequences and aftereffects are changing both the society and the urbanism at a fast pace. The question in debate here is: How can urban planning improve Cairo's resilience to political and social changes caused by the upheaval era we are living in? How can we make use of...

Robert Solomon, 1977 Sustainability, as introduced in our architectural education programs is limited to single courses in the senior years, and/or associated with building courses, or belittled to trendy statements and fashion slogans in theory courses. Rather, sustainability should be regarded as an ethical paradigm rooted in the habits and traits of our young students. This paper argues that education for sustainability calls for determining basic ethical concepts to be embedded within the introductory courses of the curricula. It aims at drawing a link between ethical reasoning attributes and key issues of sustainable thinking in design.

A sacred building is defined as a comfortable place that holds certain qualities similar to those originated from nature in harmony with its surroundings. The sacredness quality, though, usually pertains to Religious Buildings that allow for human comfort and a unique state of mind. This paper investigates the effect of sacred buildings on human brain. It concentrates on measurements of brain waves during the presence of the user at certain Paths (coordinates) in these buildings. The variation and intensity of these measurements indicate the effect of "sacredness" as a quality on the user along his/ her journey through the building. This could be used in architecture as evidence of the presence of the sacred quality; and to study the intensity of the positive effect of these buildings. This process is based on a scientific experiment to determine whether or not buildings affect the brain wave frequencies of users, and, measures these effects in terms of Brain Wave Frequency Charts through EEG Devices.

Some buildings hold certain qualities of space design similar to those originated from nature in harmony with its surroundings. These buildings, mostly associated with religious beliefs and practices, allow for human comfort and a unique state of mind. This paper aims to verify such effect on the human brain. It concentrates on measuring brain waves when the user is located in several spots (coordinates) in some of these buildings. Several experiments are conducted on selected case studies to identify whether certain buildings affect the brain wave frequencies of their users or not. These are measured in terms of Brain Wave Frequency Charts through EEG Device. The changes identified on the brain were then translated into a brain diagram that reflects the spiritual experience all through the trip inside the selected buildings. This could then be used in architecture to enhance such unique quality.

This paper focuses on the 'type' of design knowledge used in computational design environments. The paper discuss prototypical information in knowledge-based design systems, and suggests a functional type of knowledge for usage in such systems in order to achieve a degree of generalization in the domain of space design. A function in an architectural space depends on the activities that accomplish it. The paper focuses on human activities and how they may provide the means to semantically describe architectural spaces in different building types.

This research is confined to the study of typologies composing a residential environment. The main objective of this research is to understand the relationships between the structural variables of the underlying types, and their combined influence
on users' thermal comfort and privacy, based on their performance. Concurrently, the research will seek for the right combination of types at which both requirements (i.e., thermal comfort and privacy) are achieved satisfyingly.

This research adopts a correlational methodology, where a set of variables, their relationships, and resulting interactions are studied to determine patterns leading to the achievement of both requirements. The research reviews relevant concepts and
explicates the parameters of types involved in the composition of typical residential environments. Different types representing elements of the environment were used to compose sixteen cases which were analyzed in terms of their effective parameters to arrive to concluding remarks and possible future work.

This research views the design studio as a knowledge intensive educational environment, where information is considered a valuable resource that should be sustained. This research attempts to identify issues related to knowledge and information handling in the studio through inductive methods; explore different avenues to resolve the main research problem from a sustainability point of view; and to deductively reach a conceptual framework for a computer system that can sustain information and knowledge in such an intensive environment.

يعد التصميم نشاط إنساني يعنى بمجالات الخبرة والمعرفة واتخاذ القرار، حيث تؤثر قرارات واختيارات المصمم على تكوين المنتج التصميمي (الذي تمثله المساكن والمستوطنات في مجال الإسكان) ومدى ملاءمته لاحتياجات المستخدمين.  وللتحقق من ملائمة تصميم المنتج لطريقة حياة ورغبات المستخدمين يفضل إتباع أساليب إشراك المستخدمين في التصميم.  تندرج مشاركة المستخدمين تحت مفهوم "المشاركة في التصميم"، وهي محاولة للتعرف على المشاكل وحلها لصالح المستفيد/المستفيدين، الذين هم في الغالب من مجموعة خاصة من الناس لهم مشكلة (اجتماعية، أو اقتصادية، أو مادية).  أن المشاركة في التصميم قد تفهم بطرق مختلفة، فتبنى بالنسبة للبعض على المفهوم الديمقراطي حيث يحق للمستخدمين المشاركة في اتخاذ القرارات التي ستؤثر فيهم، أما للبعض الأخر، فإن أهمية المشاركة تكمن في حيثيتها كطريقة للعمل أو كمنهج من مناهج التصميم.  وتعنى ببساطة لآخرين الرغبة في أن يكون منتجهم التصميمي متوائم مع احتياجات ورغبات وتطلعات جميع المستخدمين.

تعترف وجهة النظر الديمقراطية للتصميم بالمشاركة بأهمية احتياجات المستخدمين، وتفضيلاتهم، ومواقفهم وسلوكياتهم الحضارية، ولكنها لا تفترض قدرتهم على تصميم البيئة التي يعيشوا فيها، إلا أنها تثق في قدرتهم على توفير معلومات ترشد العملية التصميمية، وذلك باستخدام أدوات يختارها المصمم لاستخلاص وجمع المعلومات، وبعد ذلك تقويمها والاستفادة منها في مراحل التصميم المختلفة.

أما من وجهة النظر المنهجية فإن عمليات إتخاذ القرار في التصميم بالمشاركة تصبح تراكمية بحيث تشمل رأى المستخدمين المنضمين إلى الفريق المصمم، بدلا من انفراد المصمم باتخاذ القرارات، وعليه يتسع دور المعماري والمخطط، ليشمل دور المعلم الذي يثقف المشاركين وينبههم إلى نتائج القرارات التي يتخذونها، والعوامل الميسةر لعملية الوصول إلى اتخاذ القرار.

لا يلزم أن يكون التصميم بالمشاركة مشروع معماري أو تخطيطي كبير، ولكن حتى وأن كانت المشاركة في مشروع صغير فإنه يجب أن يلبى احتياجات الفئة التي أقيم من أجلها.  وغالبا ما تعنى عملية المشاركة في التصميم بتوفير الخدمات المعمارية والتخطيطية للجماعات ذات الدخل المحدود الموجودة في المجتمع، كما وأنها تشمل أيضا خطوات للمشاركة بواسطة فئات المجتمع الثقافية المتعددة، مما ينتج عنه حلول متوافقة مع احتياجات المستخدمين.  تحسن الخطوات الإجرائية للمشاركة من إحساس وحدة المجتمع، وتدفع إلى التوائم مع البيئة التي يعيشون فيها، وعدم النفور منها، وتدرب المستفيدين وتفوضهم في اتخاذ القرارات، مما يرفع مستوى الرضا لدى المستخدمين المشاركين في التصميم، لإحساسهم بأثر القرارات التي اتخذها وأنها لم تتم لمجرد تنفيذ رغباتهم.

يتكون هذا الفصل من أربعة أجزاء، يناقش الجزء الأول خلفيات الموضوع ليوضح الأفكار التي شكلت هذه الطريقة في التصميم والإغراض التي قامت من أجلها.  أما الجزء الثاني فيتناول المشاركة كطريقة للعمل والخطوات التي تتم فيها والأدوات التي تستخدم فيها.  ويستعرض الجزء الثالث الفوائد المرجوة من المشاركة والعيوب التي يراها البعض فيها. ويناقش الجزء الرابع والأخير تفعيل المشاركة في المملكة العربية السعودية.

Prior knowledge plays a major role in architectural design. This knowledge pertains to the products and processes of design. Utilizing computers as a design medium requires the representation of such knowledge for reasoning purposes. The choice of what to represent from these concepts (i.e., products and processes) is critical in the utilization of knowledge-based systems in design.
The goals of this research are the enhancement of architectural flexibility and generative capabilities in design environments. Both goals are largely influenced by the knowledge represented in design environments. Architectural flexibility pertains to the compositional diversity required when using this stored knowledge to address the design of different space and building types. Generative capabilities pertain to the application of design processes to propose possible solutions, that add to the explication of the problems we are facing.
The problems of this research pertain to the level and type of decomposition that is applied on the concepts of architectural design, representation of these concepts, and their utilization in knowledge-based design systems. To enhance the flexibility and generation capabilities of design environments, the research proposes to aggregate space functions to the set of human activities that will be performed in them. This functional decomposition provides the basis for refining, adapting, and creating new space types from existing knowledge about human activities. Consequently, building types can be refined, adapted, and created from their functional aggregates (i.e., spaces).
The contributions of this research are based on the ability to represent, manipulate, and create space functions. Consequently, it is possible to describe and manipulate different building types. which achieve the goals of this research. Those contributions are theoretically grounded on cognitive and AI-based design research, and technically examined through the design and implementation of a knowledge-based experimental design environment (APE-1), that is intended to support architects in an early stage of design (i.e., architectural programming).

The jury system is a traditional architectural learning assessment tool. Since the early years of the 20 th century, it has been imported to schools of architecture throughout the Arab world by foreign expatriates and native scholars educated in the United States and Europe. The system has been well documented through the study of its evolution, the analysis of its processes, and also was criticized heavily in the literature of the Western world. However, there appears to be a severe lack of research and documentation in this area in the Arab world. The purpose of this paper is to fill this informational gap and attempts to answer the questions of how jury practices are performed in the context of the Arab world and how students perceive the jury system and its underlying practices in such a context? In an attempt to answer these questions, a multilayered methodology is deployed. First, to induct generalities between the two contexts (Western and Arab) an extensive literature review...

Self-developed and self-organized areas are becoming attraction spaces for urban planners and architects in the recent years. These areas follow different concepts and theories, such as Co-Housing and participatory design. These concepts are applied through different techniques and implementation processes.

The main objective of this paper is to trace the process followed in order to reach a successful product of self-developed neighbourhood project. This process is scrutinized in the light of theories, concepts, and implementation stages as well as involved stakeholders in order to obtain an appreciated housing neighbourhood product. There have been some experiments in developed countries like Germany to recreate the traditional process and the resulting products are becoming appreciated by the users, the authorities as well as the professionals. In Egypt, for example the Ebny Betik “Built your own house” project was one of the most popular projects adopted by the government to offer suitable and affordable houses for the middle class based on citizens participation.

The first section in the paper explains the concept of co-housing development with focusing on its characteristics. The second section based on a comparative analysis between Southern part of Tübingen project in Germany and Ebny Betik project in Egypt. The paper will present each project through introducing the main ideas and objectives of the development. Then explaining of the process and the product on relation with the co-housing characteristics.

The final section a conclusion based on a comparison between the Tübingen project and the Ebny Betik project to help deduces a process to achieve a successful self-developed and self-sustained area.