EMPLOYING SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT CONCEPTS TO REVITALIZE THE HISTORIC URBAN QUARTER OF AL-MUIZZ STREET, CAIRO, EGYPT

Historical preservation helps keep communities beautiful, vibrant and livable, and gives people a stake in their surroundings, for the fact that such historical and valuable places provide a sense of stability and a tangible link with the past (historichawaii.org Feb.2020). Historical places constitute a valuable front for cities with a well-known identity that lasted for centuries. Focusing on developing these places to ensure their sustainability and preserving their history constitutes a mission that has impact not only on the urban environment but also on people using it. Fundamentally, cities bring creative and productive people together helping them to do what they do best: exchange, create and innovate. Culture lies at the heart of urban renewal and innovation.(Culture: urban future: global report on culture for sustainable urban development, Unesco 2016). Al-Muizz Street, an urban space in Cairo, Egypt is the study of this research that aims, first, to assess the current situation of the case study and its physical conditions. Second, to employ new concepts of sustainability in order to revitalize and preserve the cultural heritage of Cairo city, and to propose sustainable design based on the field survey, in order to achieve the best development. Al-Muizz Street constitutes a history that is worth preserving and developing because of its importance in the city life cycle. By being the lifeline of Cairo, restoring life to it, helps ensure an active living and a healthy environment for people

TOWARDS URBAN BIODIVERSITY: SIMULATING DESIGN PARAMETERS FOR WILDLIFE-INCLUSIVE GREEN INFRASTRCUTURE

As of 2021, more than half of the global population resides in urban areas. This resulted in an overwhelming footprint affecting species habitat areas leading to biodiversity loss. By definition, urban biodiversity is the diversity of living things within the urban realm. By providing chances for habitat as part of new developments, preserving on-site habitats, and attempting to connect with the local ecosystems, we can help promote biodiversity. Green infrastructure (GI), which includes all semi-natural areas in the urban context, can serve as a vessel for biodiversity. Therefore, the problem can be defined by the urban footprint that expands on the expense of native habitats, leading directly to biodiversity loss and impacts on human health, and indirectly affecting livelihoods. Moreover, often times the approaches are sometimes limited to ‘green’ in more aesthetic ways than operational. It is also important to seek socio-ecological frameworks to promote adequate interaction of urban communities with wildlife. Therefore, this research aims to simulate design parameters for wildlife-inclusive green infrastructure to contribute to the creation of built environments that support urban biodiversity. If equipped with a socio-ecological framework, beyond ‘green’ results can be yielded. Using a case study method, the author will provide an application of the extracted parameters from the literature on a chosen geography with reference of ecological data provided of the ‘Shouf Biosphere Reserve’ of Lebanon to provide supported insight into wildlife-inclusive green infrastructure examples. In the context of this literature, we need to examine the manifestation of those concepts mainly on an operative level with respect to ecology. Also, it is required to examine the socio-cultural aspects of this interaction through architecture. In conclusion, as presented in the case study of SBR, the additional ecological and socio-cultural layers in planning of green infrastructure, can yield beyond ‘green’ results as a whole system designed with both the local ecosystems and urban inhabitants in mind within the landscape. Each geography will display its endemic version of ‘green’ as well. Variations of wildlife species can become parameters that also help shape our built environments. ‘Our’ built environment exists in the larger scope of the natural setting. Nature-based solutions can be implemented for our urban problems. A geographically specific GI network can provide alternative infrastructure for local ecosystems. Therefore, with increasing repercussions of urban expansion on habitat areas, immediate action plans must be formulated to stop species loss

EXPLORING THE QUALITIES OF CHILD-FRIENDLY OUTDOOR SPACES: A FIELD STUDY IN LOW INCOME NEIGHBOURHOODS - CASE STUDY: SABRA, BEIRUT, LEBANON

Children’s play areas are from the past an indispensable right for children, in which it allows children to build their physical environment and assess it cognitive thinking. But today, the city, especially in low-income population suffers from a clear shortage of open spaces, where the leftover spaces are left empty used for garbage, old tanks car parts, and many other bad issues. This has negatively affected society, mainly children, where they become vulnerable to many social ills and problems that threaten their lives and behaviour. This paper tries to ameliorate and presents adequate children’s play areas, for the low-income population, through an analytical example, suffering from a lack of playing spaces between residential buildings, and show us how responsible and associations find a clear and appropriate solution for their society. For that reason, the paper focuses on principles of how to present safe playing areas and to be accessible by all children without inequality between boys and girls, and it also presents a case study that analyses the current situation presented in this region, in order to solve it. Moreover, the paper declares that the low-income population living in the high-density urban fabric, can manage and form suitable public and kid’s gatherings, or may take advantage of good use of existing public open areas, where these can improve social relations and develop children’s physical environment. In order to survey the current situation of the case study, Sabra, the paper follows a field methodology using a questionnaire. This methodology shows the complications of low-income Sabra inhabitants and children and concluded with guidelines to ameliorate and enhance the quality of life and upgrade adequate outdoor spaces for play

TOWARDS A NEW PARADIGM IN THE LEBANESE URBAN MANAGEMENT SYSTEM FOR ENHANCED MASTER PLANS’ GENERATION

With the fact that 88% of the population living in urban areas, Lebanon is a highly urbanized country. However, this high urbanization undergoes the severe lack of the proper urban planning methodologies and approaches resulting in the sprawl along infrastructure paths. The weakness or even the complete absence of the plans escorting the urban growth made every city or town a single urban area confronted by plenty of challenges. Decentralization has been a recurrent theme in Lebanese politics for many years, yet it’s now limited by an administrative scale, and at the municipal level only. This administrative decentralization affects the planning process directly and makes it impossible to create righteous plans. The paper will focus on Master Plans by introducing their current procedure, implementation, actors, and challenges. It will highlight the Lebanese national system’s complications and limitations by following the descriptive methodology, and to present similar worldwide cases where all the difficulties were resolved by a comparative one. Finally introducing a new conceptual paradigm involving the national, regional, and local levels reshaping the Lebanese planning framework to enhance the Master Plan’s creation

دور المسطحات الخضراء والفراغات العمرانية المفتوحة في تنمية وتطوير المناطق السكنية ذات القيمة(دراسة حالة للمنطقة المحيطة بمسجد السيدة زينب بوسط القاهرة)

تعتبر المسطحات الخضراء والفراغات العمرانية المفتوحة من العناصر الحيوية في مستويات التخطيط العمراني لما لها من قيمة جمالية وإقتصادية، فهي المتنفس العمراني الحضري، كما يمثل الغطاء النباتي عنصرا هاما من عناصر الحياة الفطرية وتحقيق التوازن البيئي، وتعانى مدينة القاهرة قصورا شديدا في نسبة المسطحات الخضراء داخل تكوين الأحياء السكنية، وقلة المساحات الفضاء التي يمكن أن تتحول لهذا الاستخدام، فضلا عن أن المسطحات الضئيلة الموجودة منها لم تحدث الأثر المرغوب فيه سواء بيئيا أو إجتماعيا مما يظهر بشكل واضح بالمناطق السكنية القديمة ذات القيمة والتي تتصف بكثافة سكانية عالية وندرة في المسطحات الخضراء والفراغات العمرانية المفتوحة لممارسة الأنشطة الترفيهية والإجتماعية المختلفة، وتعتبر المنطقة المحيطة بمسجد السيدة زينب بوسط القاهرة مثالا واضحا لباقى المناطق المماثلة بوسط القاهرة. يخلص البحث بعدة نتائج لتقييم الوضع الراهن للفراغات العمرانية بمنطقة السيدة زينب، وتوصيات لتصميم وتطوير الفراغات العمرانية المناسبة للمناطق الشبيهة

GATED COMMUNITIES; IMAGES OF SUSTAINABILITY;AL-REHAB & MADINATY CASE STUDIES

The surge of newly developed gated communities (GC’s)/ neighbourhoods on the outskirts of the Greater Cairo Region has triggered research to understand the unprecedented phenomenon in Egypt in the late 1990’s. This paper investigates images of a sustainable lifestyle from the perspective of the residents of two communities; Al-Rehab and Madinaty. Qualitative and quantitative approaches are followed to explore and document residents’ perception of a sustainable lifestyle promised in these two-gated communities. Indepth interviews and a survey were conducted to assess reasons behind the move to these new communities that were a new trend in urban development in Egypt in the 90’s. Thematic and statistical analysis shows poetic images of soft sustainability that contradict to what a real future might be

The conservation of the waterfront of Saida: A model for tourism and culture-led revitalization in valuable areas

This paper is a model for the Tourism and Culture-led Revitalization in valuable areas which makes special emphasize on revitalizing the waterfront of Saida. To revitalize valuable areas, countries are attempting to attract new activities; a key new activity has been tourism and associated culture activities. Strategies for tourism and culture-led revitalization have encouraged the exploitation of the area's historic legacy for tourist development. Such development has usually meant a partial or extensive restructuring of the area's economic base. Saida has been a major touristic city but it lost its regional importance because of lack of touristic and entertaining facilities. Therefore, in order to encourage the tourism in Saida and to fully exploit the sea which is the most important feature in the city, we suggest that there must be a new building complex to fulfill the above needs by making a new maritime portal and a 5 stars Hotel in order to activate the urban tourism. Moreover, it sheds light on the weak points of the Lebanese local tourism and it suggests a new solution to develop the official economical governmental income. It develops a methodology based on a specific site analysis working on the proposed urban tissue of Saida. Keywords: Urban design, Urban conservation, Tourism and culture-led revitalizatio

Toward a new vision to design a museum in historical places

Some movements within modern architecture particularly emphasize the importance of matching buildings to their surroundings. However, practicing such “contextual architecture” is highly challenging and typically not something the future inhabitants of a building are well equipped for participating in. This paper attempts to be a new vision to design an important building in such sensitive places, for example, designing a museum in a historical context. The methodology of the study is a qualitative method based on a theoretical foundation. It sheds light on the concepts and definition of museums and contextualism, and answers the main question proposed in this paper: “How can we design a huge and important building such as a museum in historical context while respecting its importance and at the same time avoiding the deterioration of this historical place?” And based on answering the sub following questions too: What is the museum concept? What are the activities and functions of this prototype? What is the museum form and morphology? What are the types of contextual design? What are the strategies of contextual design? This part ends with electing some criteria that will be used as basis for the practical part. And thus it can be concluded the ideal strategy for designing a museum in historical context. Discussion of the findings is expected to enrich the talk in that domain. Keywords: Urban design, Built environment, Creative design, Design strategy, Contextual desig

New Insights into the Effects of Microbial Muramidase Addition in the Diets of Broiler Chickens

The study aimed to explore how broiler chickens’ blood biochemistry, breast muscles’ fatty acid profile, growth, intestinal morphology, and immune status would be influenced by adding microbial muramidase (MUR) to the diet. Four hundred 3-day-old male broiler chickens were allocated to a completely randomized design consisting of four nutritional treatments (n = 100 per treatment, 10 chicks/replicate), each containing MUR at levels of 0 (control group), 200, 400, and 600 mg Kg−1 diet, with enzyme activity 0, 12,000, 24,000, and 36,000 LSU(F)/kg diet, respectively. The 35-day experiment was completed. The findings showed that adding MUR to broiler meals in amounts of 200, 400, or 600 mg/kg had no impact on growth performance (p > 0.05) during the periods of 4–10, 11–23, and 24–35 days of age. MUR supplementation quadratically impacted the feed conversion ratio of broiler chicks at 11 and 23 days of age (p = 0.02). MUR addition to the diet significantly and level-dependently enhanced the percentage of n−3 and n−6 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) in breast muscles (p ≤ 0.01), with no alterations to the sensory characteristics of the breast muscles. Dietary MUR increased most of the morphometric dimensions of the small intestine, with the best results recorded at the 200 and 400 mg Kg−1 levels. MUR supplementation at 200, 400, and 600 mg kg−1 linearly lowered the total cholesterol, triglycerides, and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol level (p p −1 to improve broiler chickens’ fatty acid profile in breast muscles, immunity, and blood biochemistry. MUR addition had no positive influence on the bird’s growth