Amman’s Facades Lost between Identity and Veracity; Factors Impacting Facades’ Design

Today`s building façades continuously lose connection to their local identities and contextual surroundings, more attention is required when designing façades in order to come up with designs that synergize with  their unique surroundings. This does not imply that building façades should be approached in a typical traditional manner, but rather that their design should be a result of different factors, interacting and overlapping, and in respect to the physical and non-physical context.  Façades should be designed in respect to high performance, aesthetics and efficient constructability for example, and this in return indicates that variations in façade designs are a positive indication that buildings are responding to their built and natural contexts. Architects and designers should respond to side effects of globalization resulting in the spreading of out of context styles, unresponsive and kitschy, in order to save the visual interest in the city and the beyond  physical meaning of architecture. It is advised here that architects and designers articulate the very meaning of modernity within local architecture and environment. This article tries to discuss various factors impacting façade design generally, relating discussions to the current situation Amman, the metropolis, and its buildings are undergoing. Keywords: Façade design, contemporary façade, local identity, Amman

Regional Planning in Jordan, the Status Quo - Regional Planning in the Jordan Rift Valley

This paper is intended to examine and research a new way of planning on the Jordanian ground, regional planning, a planning approach proven to be highly effective globally on multiple levels but unfortunately not widely practiced in the Arab World. This research paper tries to examine how the area of the Jordan Valley is being administered regionally, and attempts to breakdown and discuss the different elements of this process in a critical manner. Outcomes of the reserch indicate mainly that although this planning approach is implicated to a certain degree; still it is seen as being more sectoral in nature. Keywords: Jordan Rift Valley, Regional Planning, Dead Sea, Master Plan, Sustainability

Efficient and Strategic Resource Allocation for Sustainable Development in Jordan

This research addresses a modern-day major topic; sustainability, and although it is in fact a very vast and wide topic and on every tongue at current times, some aspects of it seem to be left with little exploration in comparison to the other aspects, such as resource allocation. Mainly, this research will go into the importance of resource allocation for sustainable development, with emphasis on infrastructure, financial, human and information resources, and it will address topic related questions, questions like: how much effect has resource allocation on sustainable place promotion? And is it possible to allocate resources on the basis of any priority structure? And most of all, what can we do in Jordan to improve allocation of resources to achieve the desired integrated and long term development. The results basically highlight incorporating the public for achieving equitable resource allocation, and its dependence on concepts of having a priority system not hierarchy for the process of allocation, planning with objectives and introducing new adaptable global concepts to alleviate the current resource allocation condition in Jordan.This research basically recommends that resources should be allocated according to the priorities and objectives concept, objectives that are predetermined and integrated with a holistic vision of how development should be in a certain area, facilitated by a proper national agenda. Also, these priorities and objectives should always be determined according to the locals in the concerned area, and in a way that is environmentally considerate, socially integrated and economically strengthening. Keywords: External and Internal Resources, Decentralization, Community Involvement, Resource Allocation According to Priorities, Accountability, Equally Shared benefits