Potable Streets: Smart Urban Solution

Throughout the last few decades, smartness has witnessed several forms and approaches. "A smart city is an urban area that creates sustainable economic development and high quality of life by excelling in the urban environment, society and economic conditions" (UNECE 2014). In relevance to an interview with Jaime Lerner " Green cities on the cheap: Low-cost solutions for a sustainable world"; Lerner mentioned "when we realized that 75 percent of car emissions are related to the cities, we realized we can be more effective when we work with the concept of the city. It’s through cities that we can have better results". He although mentioned to what he called "portable streets", to create an informal and spontaneous market street life. There are a number of different routes through which smart urban solutions form could potentially be achieved. The paper will review several solutions in relative to low-tech smart urban solutions; as a step which might make in moving urban development closer to a smart urban form. As an effective study, the paper will discuss some examples in order to highlight the importance of "portable streets". This paper therefore, investigates the advantages of this approach as a sustainable and smart urban solution. The result of this research will be found in a number of recommendations on several levels

Tactical Urbanism as an Approach to Reuse Residual Spaces

Most cities around the world have residual spaces. Perhaps no city has no residual spaces. The residual spaces are areas in the city layout that have no real benefit to the community. These spaces appear as a result of the planning process. They are located in places such as between streets, between buildings and under bridges. Sometimes they are also called in-between spaces and lost spaces. These residual spaces seem to be a burden on city planning as they turn into abandoned or informal activities. On the other hand, they may represent a source of income and allow for community participation, which in turn could be a part of the sustainable development of cities. Therefore, these areas could be exploited and oriented towards community serving and problem-solving such as unemployment problem in developing countries in particular. In other words, these spaces have potentials that can be exploited through reuse. Tactical urbanism is a trend that seeks to reuse urban spaces and transform them into development opportunities that benefit society. Tactical urbanism mainly relies on low-cost, service-oriented projects in the community. This paper highlights the reuse of residual spaces through the adoption of tactical urbanism as an approach. In this sense, the paper identifies the residual spaces, their classification and their potentials. The paper then proceeds into determining the tactical urbanism by definition, its importance and how it works. In the analytical part, the paper investigates a local case study, “306 street” project in the Dokki area, Egypt. The study concludes the importance of reusing the residual spaces using tactical urbanism approach and their contribution to community development. The study ends with a set of recommendations on various levels

IMPACT OF 3D SIMULATION MODELING ON ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN EDUCATION

Throughout the last few decades, architectural design education has witnessed several changes. One of these changes was using 3D Simulation modeling technology into design process. With the rise of environmental approach in design, new 3D simulation applications started to invade studios and laboratories of design. These applications proved an obvious efficiency for the architectural form concerning thermal adaptation, ideal lighting, and most appropriate ventilation. Lately, Arabic countries imported this technology into its schools of architecture, but unfortunately students faced obstacles in applying it in their design projects. Although there are certain courses, such as; \u27Environmental Design\u27, \u27Indoor Environmental Control\u27, and \u27Digital Fabrication Modeling\u27, that already give students a good knowledge with 3D simulation modeling and environment aspects, but in fact students still find difficulties in applying it into their \u27Architectural Design\u27 course. This paper investigates the real reasons standing behind this problem trying to produce new suggestions that can be followed into design studio. That aims to improve the student\u27s architectural product to be closer to reality. As an effective case study, the paper will examine the impact of using 3D simulation modeling on a selection of design projects from \u27the fourth year students, Faculty of Architectural Engineering, Beirut Arab University, Lebanon\u27. One of the important findings is: \u27Students consider the 3D simulation modeling a constrain reducing their conceptual creativity\u27