Environmental Analysis of the Residential Sector in Cairo

Rapid demographic increase and transition in governmental policies influenced the patterns of Egyptianresidential sector, services and urban fabric. The housing stock in Egypt is dominated by private owners, informally and high consumption rates. Studies attempted to classify historic periods that created the current urban pattern and led to an uncontrollable expansion of a metropolis. Political and demographic changes had a major role in the city’s urban, architectural and legislative transformation, especially after the change of government policies in 1953. The article aims to evaluate the development milestones of the housing stock in Cairo before and after 1953, from an environmental sustainability perspective on a building and urban scale. Based on official statistics, maps from various periods and literature, the urban development of the city is assessed. The impact of governmental policies and strategic plans is analyzed, taking into consideration demographic growth, urban sprawl and environmental aspects. The residential stock is classified in two time phases (before and after 1953) and three dominant typological -urban and architectural- criteria. Based on this classificatory model, representative characteristics of different periods are assessed in terms of morphology, construction materials and environmental design. The results provide a critical analysis of Cairo's environmental and sustainability policies in the second half of the previous century. It provides an evaluation base for comparison with the city's current built environment and offers guidance for future scenarios

envelope retrofit in hot arid climates

This article aims to evaluate envelope retrofit as a tool to decrease reliance on air conditioning units in hot arid climates. Energyplus is used to model an apartment block in Cairo and analyze its energy performance.Retrofit through glazing improvement is evaluated in relation to cooling load andcarbon emissions. Results provide guidance for envelope retrofitas a part of a plan to empower energy efficiency in Egypt and hot arid countries

Energy Efficiency for Egyptian Housing. Code Compliance and Enforcement

The housing stock in Egypt is dominated by informality. Consumption rates increase is more than 5 percent annually. The government in 2005 introduced a building energy efficiency code; it indicates minimum design and application requirements for residential buildings. Submission is mandatory and should lead to about 20 percent energy savings with higher comfort levels. Nevertheless, compliance with building codes is almost nonexistent, electricity is subsidized, and incentives to adopt energy efficient patterns are very low. The article introduces the code and discusses the impact of its introduction on national authorities, the academic community, and the private sector; it analyses factors and challenges that obstacle a realistic compliance of current regulations; and it presents an enforcement strategy that is based on three main approaches that include retrofit. The strategy aims to empower energy efficiency and enforce sustainable patterns in the residential sector and provides a support guiding tool for decision-makers and future scenarios

Between Research and teaching: Identifying new competencies for Healthy cities

Healthy Cities is one of the central themes addressed in the Sustainable Development Goals. The World Health Organization’s new Urban Health Initiative creates a paradigm shift in health systems approaches by focusing on the urban environment as a prerequisite for healthy lifestyles - and disease prevention. In Europe, the Zagreb declaration pointed out its attention to strengthen and champion action on health through healthy cities networks. Architects and engineers play a strategic role in building this future and activating actions in key development sectors, like housing and transport, as well as in the settings where people live and work. This requires new professional figures with the hard and soft skills that stimulate urban transformation for healthier built environments. The paper discusses a methodological approach to identify the competencies to be acquired by future practitioners. It is developed within an ongoing Erasmus+ project that represents the contextual field for testing the method in three Bosnian Universities. The article describes the methodology and its application. It starts with designing analysis’ grids to evaluate how the topic is currently addressed, and it builds questionnaires to evaluate the students’ awareness. Moreover, the research investigates stakeholders through organized seminars and surveys to understand the labor market and social needs. The paper suggests a strategy for setting up new courses for future architects, urban planners, and engineers, experts of the healthy urban environment. Testing the method in the Bosnian context, one of the main indications is the importance of innovative teaching methodologies integrated with the use of practical experience and laboratories. The method proposed is replicable for curriculum development in Higher Education, and it highlights how the research is a fundamental base for designing and teaching academic courses

Teaching practices in architectural technology courses. An experiment and future perspectives in the Italian context

[EN] Architectural technology is a subject in constant evolution due to the specificity of territorial production, which is increasingly becoming more global. The constant change in the way of doing architecture requires the transmission of knowledge and skills that see an ever-greater weight in the acquisition of soft skills rather than hard skills, especially in terms of development of critical thinking by students, thus enabled to face situations with new complexities (which pose new challenges) at the end of their learning course. The paper aims to present the innovative teaching methodologies experimented in the last years within the course of architectural technology in the five years degree in Architecture at the Faculty of Architecture, Sapienza University of Rome. It includes considerations regarding the classroom vs. online learning, experienced during the COVID-19 lockdown phases, considering the results of a survey that collected 158 students’ views. The creation of an active learning environment could support the preparation of professional figures and architects able to manage emerging challenges, adapt to future modalities, and make use of information and communication technologies, that are rapidly changing, especially after the unexpected shift caused by the pandemic phase.Giofrè, F.; El Edeisy, M. (2022). Teaching practices in architectural technology courses. An experiment and future perspectives in the Italian context. En 8th International Conference on Higher Education Advances (HEAd'22). Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 789-796. https://doi.org/10.4995/HEAd22.2022.1464678979