IUSD 2nd Intake journal 2014

IUSD Journal Working Papers 2014

MSc Integrated Urbanism & Sustainable Design (IUSD) www.iusd-program.net

IUSD Journal Working Papers 2014

MSc Integrated Urbanism & Sustainable Design (IUSD) www.iusd-program.net

Disclaimer The content of this IUSD Journal is a compilation of the working papers for the Masters of Integrated Urbanism and Sustainable Design, Class of 2014. Š IUSD Masters Program, 2014 No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form of by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

All rights reserved Integrated Urbanism and Sustainable Design Journal ISSN 2356-8542 (Print) ISSN 2356-850X (Online)

IUSD Cairo Editing Team Prof. Dr. Mohamed A. Salheen Assoc. Prof. Dr. Yehya Mohamed Serag Assoc. Prof. Dr. Marwa Abdellatif M.Sc. Eng. Abdulmoneim Alfiky MSc. Ebtihal Zakaria Abbas

The IUSD Journal would not have been possible without the support of variety of donors and partners organizations, which are thanked collectively. IUSD is funded by DAAD, BMZ, BMF, MoHE Federal Ministry of Education

Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation

Ministry of Higher Education

Contacts: MSc Integrated Urbanism and Sustainable Design www.iusd-program.net

Ain Shams University Faculty of Engineering El Sarayat street 1, Abbassia, Cairo-Egypt Fax: 0020222728225 Email: iusd@eng.asu.edu.eg

University of Stuttgart Faculty of Architecture and Urban Design Keplerstr. 11 70174 Stuttgart -Germany Email: info@iusd.uni-stuttgart.de

Preface This issue of the Integrated Urbanism and Sustainable Design (IUSD) journal is dedicated specifically to the working papers of the second batch of the IUSD Master program. This year we have classified the different working papers according to six main themes: Urban governance and civic engagement, the papers under this theme are discussing interesting topics and cases from several cities across the MENA region. They have a special focus on the concepts dealing with the right to the city, urban development, marginalization, and the relationships with informal settlements. Such issues are discussed within their wider contexts taking into account the different socio-economic and political forces that directly affect them.

Cities, Environment and Sustainable Urban Infrastructure, the topics under this theme explore some interesting concepts that can be applied in urban settlements to achieve further sustainable impacts in terms of economic activities and energy provision. These concepts include but are not limited to urban agriculture, solar farms and clean means of transportation. Such concepts are explored within the different geographical and climatic factors of the Sahara Desert, Metropolitan Cairo, and the new settlements in Egypt.

Sustainable Construction and Energy Efficient Building Design, this theme focuses mainly on architectural design, landscape design and construction solutions to achieve sustainability and energy efficiency. The topics within this theme include the usage of building envelopes to improve indoor thermal comforts, biophilic design in healthcare facilities, as well as climate sensitive landscape design.

Politics and Urbanism, this theme looks at the impact of politics on urbanism. Owing to the fact that MENA region is witnessing major transformations coupled with regional conflicts, the political dynamics accompanying such events are causing in turn serious transformations and impacts on urbanism and urban development. The cases within hand discuss the evolution of the Syrian refugee camps in Jordan, the impact on urban spaces in Beirut, the built environment and urban planning in Jerusalem and the West bank. Such cases are in fact documenting the ongoing transformation while attempting to discuss how the urban development future within the context of these cases might look like.

Heritage and Urban Conservation, articles under this theme are discussing the different approaches for Heritage conservation in urban areas. The cases selected for discussion are very diverse. On one fold possible strategies of urban conservation within a post-conflict context in Syria are discussed. On the other fold, the challenges of urban conservation in Egypt especially in the context of growing cities are tackled. Hence, giving an interesting spectrum of the mechanisms and dynamics of heritage and urban conservation in different contexts.

Development of Peripheral Settlements, this final theme is relatively less researched, and this contributes more to its importance. In many countries within the MENA region, peripheral and border settlements and regions get less attention when it comes to development initiatives. The case discussed within this theme focuses on the city of Shalateen in Egypt close with the borders with Sudan. Several considerations are taken when dealing with such cases, such as social, climatic, political and economic dynamics. Although the case comes from the Egyptian context, nevertheless, many similarities with other MENA countries are shared with it.

Finally, we hope that this issue of the IUSD Journal is of good contribution and added value to the global knowledge. We believe that it will be of good benefit to other researches and scholars across the globe, dealing with topics within the same theme. We also consider this publication a good catalyst to initiate scientific discussions and further research related to its themes.

IUSD Journal – IUSD Team Cairo, September 2014

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Table of Contents Urban Governance and Civic Engagement

1

Securing Tenure for Squatter Areas in Cairo

3

The Integration of Volunteered Geographic: Information in Urban Heritage Conservation in Egypt

11

Knowledge Sharing in Urban Development

19

Contextualising the Right to the City, Between Squatting and Adaptive Reuse

27

Marginalized Citizen and the Right to the City

33

Mohammed A. Alfiky Heba Badr

Katharina Frieling Nuha Innab

Daniel Koschorrek

Cities, Environment and Sustainable Urban Infrastructure

41

Assessing the Potentials of Multi-functional Urban Agriculture in Egypt: Towards Cultivating the New Urban Settlements

43

Landscape Aesthetics and Solar Farms in the Western Desert of Egypt

49

Encouraging Bicycling as a Means of Sustainable Urban Transportation in Cairo

57

Sustainable Construction and Energy Efficient Building Design

65

Biophilic Design

67

Towards an Integrative Discourse on Traditional and Modern Building Techniques as Sustainable Alternative to Current Practices

73

The Role of the Building Envelope in Improving the Indoor Thermal comfort of Residential Building Designs in Amman as Representative of Semi-Arid Climate

81

Climatic Sensitive Landscape Design

89

Dina Mahmoud Abdel Rashid Noseir Aya El-Wagieh

Eric Puttrowait

Sara Mohamed AbdelMeguid

Rasha Abodeeb

Abdalrahman H. Alshorafa Wesam El-Bardisy

Politics and Urbanism 97 The Emergence of Habitat in Zaatari Camp

99

Public Spaces and Sectarian Tensions in Beirut

105

Real Estate Nationalism

Ayham Dalal

Irmtraud Eckart Athar Mufreh

Urban Implications of Palestinians Obtaining Israeli Citizenship in Jerusalem, Palestine Tariq Nassar

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113 119

Heritage and Urban Conservation

127

Understanding the Gap between Heritage Conservation and Local Development in Egypt

Mohamed Aniss Mohamed ElGamal

129

Towards a Strategy for Regaining Cultural Identity in the Urban Reconstruction of the War-Ravaged City Centre of Homs, Syria

135

Heritage of Modernity

143

Sana Kassouha Mahy Mourad

Development of Peripheral Settlements Shalatin (Egypt): Between Urbanism and Nomadism Mohamed Mahrous

151 153

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Urban Governance and Civic Engagement

Nassar, 2014

Source: Author

Securing Tenure for Squatter Areas in Cairo Author: Mohammed A. Alfiky Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Mohamed A. Salheen, Professor of Integrated Planning and Design - Ain Shams University, Egypt Supervisor: Prof. Wolf Reuter, Professor of Urban Planning - University of Stuttgart, Germany Supervisor: Dr. Marwa A. Khalifa, Associate Professor of Urban Planning - Ain Shams University, Egypt The aim of this paper is to highlight the problem of tenure security in Egypt and, especially, in Cairo’s squatter areas.

The research is based on a master thesis under the title of “Community Based Security of Tenure”. The paper will give a quick background on the theory of tenure security in the UN-Habitat discourse. Besides, it tries to focus on the rule of law through studying the international agreements, the Egyptian law and the Islamic Shari’a to solve the problem of the insecurity of tenure. The research was based on interviews, literature reviews and field visits for data collection. The research offers, at the end, a workflow for securing tenure in squatter areas.

Keywords: Gecekondus; Law; Security of Tenure; Shari’a; Squatter Areas.

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Introduction Egypt has a major problem with informality. Around 15.7 million inhabitants are living in informal areas (i.e. around 22.3% of the population) (The World Bank 2006). Informality, as a problem, was always discussed apart from the national housing policy. Furthermore, Egypt has a deficiency in the land management system and deficiency in the local administration system (Shaat 2014). In 2008, ISDF1 was founded to be the only governmental body dealing with the problem of informality. The insecurity of tenure, forced eviction2, inadequate housing, inadequate infrastructure, illiteracy and unemployment are all problems of informality. This paper will highlight the problem of the insecurity of tenure in squatter areas (i.e. areas on former desert land (Sims 2000)) in Cairo.

Insecurity of tenure means that the dwellers do not have any legal documents of ownership either for the land or the building or for both together. In the case of squatter areas, there are no legal documents for both the land and the building above it (Sims 2000; Séjourné 2012). Nearly 50% of GCR’s3 population lives in squatter areas (Sims et al. 2003). In other words, around 50% of the population of GCR lives with no legal documents for the land or the buildings above it. This number is extremely massive and shocking.

The author will try to highlight the problem of the security of tenure, in Cairo’s squatter areas, through highlighting the definition of the security of tenure and mentioning the rule of the law, whether international or national, in securing tenure. The author will also attempt to illustrate the existing procedure for securing tenure in Egypt as well as study the mechanism of securing tenure in Turkey. All this will serve in formulating a new framework for securing tenure for squatter areas in Cairo. The paper is based on a 6-month Masters Thesis research under the title of “Community Based Security of Tenure (Initial Framework for Squatter Areas in Cairo)”.

1. Security of Tenure “Once ownership rights and planning were introduced to cities, their populations lost their autonomy in securing housing. Ownership rights restricted the freedom of housing location, while planning restricted land use, construction and development.” (Yalcintan & Erbas 2003: p.95) For Decades, the security of tenure was a problem for developing countries. Around 50% of the urban residents in the developing world lack security of tenure. According to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adequate housing is vital for adequate standards of life (United Nations 1999). In order to achieve adequate housing and legal access to land, effective use of land and protection from forced eviction should exist (United Nations 1999; UN-Habitat 2008; Payne et al. 2012). Legal or secure access to land is the opportunity of people to occupy or use the land, either permanently or temporally for shelter, economic and productive activities (UN-Habitat 2008) besides to securing access to land encourages people to invest in land and develop economic activities (ibid).

According to Un-Habitat (2008), land tenure is defined as “the way land is held or owned by individuals and groups, or the set of relationships legally or customarily defined amongst people with respect to land. In other words, tenure reflects relationships between people and land directly, and between individuals and groups of people in their dealings in land” (UN-Habitat 2008: p.5). Also, tenure can be defined as “the degree of confidence that land users will not be arbitrarily deprived of the rights they enjoy over land and the economic benefits that flow from it” (ibid). The issue of insecure tenure of land has a bigger influence on the urban poor.

Since they are vulnerable, they are most likely to be affected by forced eviction (Payne et al. 2012). Being forcibly evicted could lead to more informal settlements or slums with more insecure tenure. Tenure security could be a way to identify the rights of the urban poor (United Nations 1999). For the urban poor, land represents shelter, income, food and social identity (IFAD 2012). Thus, land is very fundamental to their lives.

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2. Laws and Security of Tenure According to the United Nations (1999) “Security of tenure implies that the right of access to and use of land and property is underwritten by a known set of rules, and that this right is justifiable” (United Nations 1999: p.32). Security of tenure has been addressed by different laws and agreements either internationally (e.g. International Law, Declaration of Human Rights, etc.) or nationally (e.g. Unified Building Law no. 119/2008, Civil Law, etc.) besides to the Islamic Law ‘Shari’a’4 which is astonishing in the rules that govern the right to access land and access adequate housing.

International Agreements Under the name of the ‘International Bill of Rights’, the United Nations set three international instruments to protect and promote adequate housing: (1) The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948); (2) The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) (1976) and (3) The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) (1976) (ICELANDIC HUMAN RIGHTS CENTRE n.d.; UN-Habitat 2003). The three instruments stressed on the importance of social security and the right of individuals to adequate food, cloth, shelter and living standard. Besides, every individual should have access to public services.

The adequate shelter should be “healthy, safe, secure, accessible, affordable and includes basic services, facilities and amenities” (UN-Habitat 2003: p.11). Also, the government should work alongside the civic society to help vulnerable groups to achieve secure tenure and protect them from forced eviction (United Nations 2009).

Egyptian Law By the year 2008, the parliament passed the ‘Unified Building Law 119/2008’ and used the term ‘unplanned areas’5. By late 2008, the ISDF used two terms – ‘unplanned’ and ‘unsafe’. Thus, there is no definition for informality in the Egyptian law, by any means. To achieve security of tenure for squatter areas in Egypt, it is vital to study the ‘Civil Law’, especially the ‘Takeover’ section. According to the Civil Law, any desert land that has no owner is considered a state-owned land and cannot be encroached over (Egyptian Ministry of Justice 1948). However, until 1964, the third paragraph of article no. 874 stated that, if any Egyptian planted an unplanted land or built upon it, he consequently owns the land even without an agreement from the state. Yet, he could lose his ownership in case he does not use the land for 5 consecutive years (ibid). It was based on ‘Shari’a’, the principle of vitalization ‘Ihyaa’. Unfortunately, this paragraph was cancelled by article no. 86 of law no. 100 for 1964 (ibid). According to articles no. 968, 969 and 976, if a movable or a property is possessed for 15 years continuously, the possessor gains the ownership. At the same time, if this possession is combined with well meaning, the possession period is decreased to only 5 years. This is known as ‘possession through prescription’. However, if the property is owned to the state, public organizations or public companies, it cannot be owned or possessed through prescription (ibid). Furthermore, law no. 31 for 1984 stated that, in the case of taking over a state’s Private Domain, the local administration can demolish any construction and evict the people without a need to a court rule. Yet, the law made a way out, that if the local administration found that demolishing the construction and evicting the people may cause social insecurity or political or economic conflicts, the local administration can prevent demolishing and eviction and sell the land to the encroachers (Egyptian Ministry of Justice 1984).

Islamic Shari’a The “[…] principles of Islamic Shari’a is the main source of legislation” (Constitutional Amendments Committee 2013: article no.2 p.7). This phrase shows the importance of the principles of Shari’a, which can contribute to security of tenure. Shari’a has a very important pillar – essentials come first, followed by the needs, then the amenities. Essentials are home, cloth, food, water and a means of transportation (Fiadh 2014). Prophet Mohammed’s Hadith states that, “Land is the land of GOD and people are the people of GOD” (Akbar 1992).

This implies that the absolute ownership is for GOD. Yet, there is another ownership known as the ‘allegori-

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cal ownership’. This ownership is for individuals as well as for the state (Fiadh 2014). Consequently, all public land is owned by the state, to manage it (ibid). Shari’a illustrated various means to access land, purchasing, land allocation ‘Iqta’a’, vitalization ‘Ihyaa’, etc. (El-Kassar 2001). The principle of Ihyaa is based on the Hadith, “whoever vitalizes a dead land, can claim his right in its ownership”; in Arabic words, “‫”من أحيا أرضا ً ميتة فهي له‬ (Akbar 1992; El-Kassar 2001). The Hadith illustrates that any dead land can be owned through vitalization.

Most jurists of Shari’a said that the ownership should be through the state and should facilitate access to land and adequate housing. It should be clear that Shari’a does not recognize the rape of others’ ownership (e.g. state ownership or individuals ownership) (ibid). Yet, in the case of takeover of a state-owned land, Shari’a enforces the Egyptian Civil law, in article no. 968, based on an important principle: “Warding off evil takes precedence over bringing benefits”, the Arabic translation of which is “‫( ”المصالح درء المفاسد مقدم على جلب‬ibid).

3. Securing Tenure for Squatter Areas in Egypt

Figure 1: Legal acquisition of state private domain Source: Constructed by (Author). Based on (Shaat 2014; Séjourné 2012)

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The procedure of securing tenure is time consuming and energy sapping as it could last for 10 years or more without even securing tenure for squatters. Séjourné (2012) claims that the process of property title transfer from the state to the squatters needs an official decree for land purchase – ‘tamlik’. A decree announced by the President or the Prime Minister or the governor. This procedure follows the promulgation of Law no. 31 of 1984, law no. 184 of 2006 and Prime Ministerial decree no. 2843 of 2009, where squatters can purchase state land if they have occupied it before the promulgation of the law (Egyptian Ministry of Justice 2012). At the beginning, the governor forms a committee from the different departments to fix the price of both the land and the monthly instalments (Séjourné 2012). Afterwards, the claimant fills an application for land acquisition in six-month duration from the promulgation of the law. Then the claimant has to address the public registry asking for a detailed land history ‘bahs tasalsul milkyat al-aquar’ (see Figure 1). Within thirty days, the public registry will supply the claimant with a real estate transactions certificate ‘shahadet tasarufat aquaria’. This certificate identifies the owner of the land. In the first case, to be owned by the state, the certificate will identify the owning authority (e.g. Governorate, Ministries, etc.). The claimant fills an application and submits it along with ‘shahadet tasarufat aquaria’ to the property department, ‘amlak’. Afterwards, the claimant has to submit documents to prove the ownership or occupation of the land (e.g. electricity bills, water bills, attestation of signature, etc.). Following this, the departments in charge verify the certificates. After the verification, the claimant receives a temporary title deed for the land upon paying a deposit. The full title deed is received upon the completion of the monthly instalments. In the second case, the land has no owner. The land cannot be purchased except after registering it as a state-owned land (Shaat 2014).

4. Securing Tenure for Squatter Areas in Turkey In 2003, TOKİ6, made a model for solving the problem of illegal settlements (Gecekondus) (Uzun et al. 2010).

This model has two alternatives for implementation. The first is to demolish illegal settlements, then construct new dwellings in the same area and, afterwards, allocate the dwellings to the right holders. The second, on the other hand, is to construct the new dwellings in a different area and transfer the right holders to this new area.

For both alternatives, the municipality – local authority, determines the chosen illegal settlement for upgrading the TOKİ and, afterwards, a protocol is signed between the TOKİ and the municipality if the chosen area is suitable for urban upgrading (see Figure 2). TOKİ conducts feasibility studies, designs the project, and then a committee is formed, from both the TOKİ and the municipality, to determine the right holders and the real estate value. Slum owners earn rights for new houses based on the real estate value as long as they prove their ownership in the project. Afterwards, slum owners sign a contract with the TOKİ and announce that they will pay the difference between the values of the old slum and the newly constructed dwellings within a 15-year period. However, if the TOKİ cannot reach an agreement with the slum owner, the corresponding real estate is expropriated. After that, the TOKİ provides a dwelling for the squatter with affordable instalments after being evacuated from the land. The TOKİ makes a tender to choose a private contractor to construct the new buildings. For the first model, the new dwellings are made on the same land for slum owners and squatters after a land purification process by TOKİ. Slum owners will be moved to new dwellings and the municipality will be in charge of paying the rent. After the completion of the project, new dwellings will be entitled to the right holders. In the second model, modern dwellings will be constructed for slum owners and squatters, on a vacant land, and entitled to right holders. The purification process will be undertaken on the illegal settlements after the evacuation and transfer of land property to TOKİ.

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Figure 2: (TOKİ) model of illegal settlement upgrading Source: (Uzun et al. 2010: p.207)

Conclusion Securing tenure in squatter areas is not an easy task or a short process. On the contrary, it is an exhausting, time-consuming process. Yet, it could be secured. The following framework will present the workflow of legalising a squatter area. It is based on the framework of the legal acquisition of squatter areas with some modifications. This framework is for squatter areas on state Private Domains only. At the beginning, the governorate signs a protocol with the new Ministry of Urban Renewal and Informal settlements to develop squatter areas under its sovereignty. The UUU7 will carry out different surveys for squatter areas. Afterwards, the UUU sends the proposed squatter areas for intervention to the ministry for approval. In this context, there are two alternatives either (1) the area can be developed or (2) the area cannot be developed.

Alternative 1 The governor forms a committee to fix the price of both the land and the monthly instalments. The price of the land should be at the time of encroachment. Afterwards, the claimant fills an application and submits it to the committee. Also, the claimant should submit proofs of ownership to the ‘amlak’. The ‘amlak’ then verifies if the proofs are valid or not. In case they are not valid, the claimant is not allowed to get a title deed. While, if the proofs are valid, the claimant gets a temporary title deed upon paying a deposit, and gets a full title deed after finishing the monthly instalments (see Figure 3). For the governorate to ensure that the claimant cannot benefit from this process, the instalments will be paid over 15 years.

Alternative 2 The governor forms a committee to determine which of the housing projects the claimant will be re-located to, taking into consideration the social and economic aspects. Besides, the committee fixes the price of the new apartment and the monthly instalments (see Figure 3). Then the claimant follows the same procedure as ‘alternative 1’ to achieve a full title deed. In both alternatives, a major obstacle faces the governorate; the ownership of the land (i.e. is the land owned by the governorate or is it owned by one of the ministries or sovereign bodies). In this case, a new law should be enacted, stating that all the land in a governorate should be under its sovereignty. Thus, the governorate can get away from this major obstacle. As for ‘alternative 2’, when people are re-located to a new area, the land of the squatter area should be under the governorate’s sovereignty. Also, any taxes (e.g. ‫ )العوايد‬that the claimant paid to the government should be deducted from the price of either the land or the new apartment.

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Figure 3: Legal acquisition of Cairo’s squatter areas Source: Author Endnotes 1. Informal Settlement Development Facility.

2. The permanent or temporary removal against their will of individuals, […], without the provision of, and access to, appropriate forms of legal or other protection (UN-Habitat 2008: p.4).

3. Greater Cairo Region.

4. Shari’a is the Islamic law. It is based on the Holy Qur’an and the Hadith of Prophet Mohammed (Peace and Blessings be Upon Him) (El-Kassar 2001) 5. Areas that grew up in violation to urban and planning laws and regulations; they are identified by the approved strategic plan of the city or the village (Egyptian Ministry of Justice 2008: p.9).

6. The Housing Development Administration in Turkey (TOKİ 2014).

7. Urban Upgrading Unit in the Governorate References Akbar, G.A.K., 1992. ‫ مقارنة الرشيعة بأنظمة العمران الوضعية‬:‫ عامرة األرض يف اإلسالم‬Third edit., Beirut, Lebanon: Al-Resalah PUBLISHERS. Constitutional Amendments Committee, 2013. Egyptian Constitution, Egypt. Available at: http://dostour.eg/.

Egyptian Ministry of Justice, 2012. 1- Law No. 143 of 1981 Regarding the Desert Land and its Implementing Regulations Issued by the Minister of State for Development and Housing No. 198 of 1982 2- Law No. 7 of 1991 Regarding the following provisions Relating to state-owned property, Egypt.

Egyptian Ministry of Justice, 1948. Civil Law, Egypt.

Egyptian Ministry of Justice, 1984. Law No. 31 of 1984 Regarding the Rules for the Disposition of State Private Domain, Egypt.

Egyptian Ministry of Justice, 2008. The Encyclopedia of Unified Building Law No. 119 of 2008 and Its Regulation No. 144 of 2009, Egypt.

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El-Kassar, N.A.R., 2001. The Concept of Ownership in the Formation of the Islamic City Thesis. Heriot-Watt University.

Fiadh, A., 2014. Interviewed by: Mohammed Alfiky (20 April 2014).

ICELANDIC HUMAN RIGHTS CENTRE, No. 21 The Human Right to Adequate Housing. Available at: http://www.humanrights.is/the-human-rights-project/humanrightscasesandmaterials/generalcomments/unfactsheets/No.21humanrig htstoadequatehousings/ [Accessed January 21, 2014].

IFAD, 2012. Land tenure security and poverty reduction. , p.4. Available at: http://www.ifad.org/pub/factsheet/land/e. pdf.

Payne, B.G., Durand-lasserve, A. & Payne, G., 2012. “ Holding On : Security of Tenure - Types , Policies , Practices and Challenges ,” Available at: http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Housing/SecurityTenure/Payne-Durand-LasserveBackgroundPaper-JAN2013.pdf.

Séjourné, M., 2012. Inhabitants’ Daily Practices to Obtain Legal Status for Their Homes and Security of Tenure: Egypt.

In M. Abasa, B. Dupret, & E. Denis, eds. Popular Housing and Urban Land Tenure in the Middle East Case Studies from Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey. Cairo: Athe American University in Cairo Press, pp. 91–110.

Shaat, K., 2014. Interviewed by: Mohammed Alfiky (5 May 2014).

Sims, D., 2000. Residential Informality in Greater Cairo : Typologies , Representative Areas , Quantification , Valuation and Causal Factors, Cairo.

Sims, D. et al., 2003. Urban Slums Report: The Case of Cairo , Egypt, Cairo.

The World Bank, 2006. ARAB REPUBLIC OF EGYPT EGYPT PUBLIC LAND MANAGEMENT STRATEGY VOLUME I: POLICY NOTE, Cairo.

TOKİ, 2014. Republic of Turkey Prime Ministry Housing Development Administration. Available at: http://www.toki.gov. tr/english/hda.asp [Accessed March 19, 2014].

UN-Habitat, 2008. Secure Land Rights for All, Nairobi. Available at: https://www.responsibleagroinvestment.org/sites/ responsibleagroinvestment.org/files/Secure land rights for all-UN HABITAT.pdf.

UN-Habitat, 2003. The Habitat Agenda Goals and Principles , Commitments and the Global Plan of Action, Available at: http://www.unhabitat.org/downloads/docs/1176_6455_The_Habitat_Agenda.pdf.

United Nations, 1999. Security Of Tenure, Available at: http://www.un.org/ga/Istanbul%2B5/32.pdf.

United Nations, 2009. The Right to Adequate Housing, Geneva. Available at: http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/FS21_rev_1_Housing_en.pdf.

Uzun, B., Çete, M. & Palancıoğlu, H.M., 2010. Legalizing and upgrading illegal settlements in Turkey. Habitat International, 34(2), pp.204–209. Available at: http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S019739750900071X [Accessed February 25, 2014].

Yalcintan, M.C. & Erbas, A.E., 2003. Impacts of “Gecekondu” on the Electoral Geography of Istanbul. International Labor and Working-Class History, 64(64), pp.91–111. Available at: http://www.journals.cambridge.org/abstract_ S0147547903000218.

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Source: Author

The Integration of Volunteered Geographic Information in Urban Heritage Conservation in Egypt A Conceptual framework for Collaboration Author: Heba Badr Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Mohamed Abdelbaki, Professor of Architecture and Urban Planning - Ain Shams University, Egypt Supervisor: Prof. Antje Stokman, Professor of Landscape Planning and Ecology - University of Stuttgart, Germany Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Marwa Abdellatif, Assistant Professor of Urban Planning - Ain Shams University, Egypt In the recent decade, the new generation of the web-based platform known as web 2.0, encouraged interactions among internet users and provided new approaches for using geographical information (GI) such as Public Participatory Geographic Information System (PPGIS) and the Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI). These approaches are seen as an opportunity to support the urban heritage conservation activism that emerged to put an end to the continuous loss of significant buildings and urban fabrics in Egypt. Based on a master thesis research, this article provides a brief overview of the studied urban heritage conservation issue, related to sharing information among activists, the VGI approach and its challenges, and the seen potentials of the currently used tools and strategies to integrate the VGI approach within the urban heritage conservation. Finally, the article demonstrates a brief description of a suggested framework for using VGI to support the bottom-up participatory approach.

Keywords: VGI Volunteered Geographic Information, PPGIS, Crowd-mapping, urban heritage conservation

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1.

Overview of Urban Heritage Focused Problem

In Egypt, the management of urban heritage is a governmental responsibility with almost no community participation. In the recent years, urban heritage has witnessed lots of violations that led to the loss of its significance due to the irreversible changes of its fabric. Shortages in different aspects such as legislations, officials’ capacities, community awareness, corruptions, integration among stakeholders, and information contributed to this situation’s accessibility (Hassan et al., 2008). Consequently, a number of conservation experts, architects, archaeologists, and community activists stepped in by forming different groups or acting individually to, publicly, present information and thoughts in an attempt to raise community awareness and ask for advocacy in order to stop this continuous loss. Sharing such information has helped to spread the word in a wider network that can reach responsible bodies which have the power and can take action to stop such kinds of violations (Akl, 2014; Nabil, 2014).

Based on observation, the most popular used web-based platform to share such information is Facebook. For instance, Save Alex, Save Cairo, Save Al-Mansoura, Treasures of Egypt at Risk and many others are Facebook pages for active groups which focus on a certain area and use the page for public advocacy. Most of them initiated after 2011, when the role of the youth and the possibilities for other usage of social media have been demonstrated in the revolutions known as the Arab Spring1. The next popular web-based platforms are personal blogs for activists such as Godran Madina Mot’aba2 (Walls of a Tired City), Cairo Observer3, and Keep Hunting Photos blogs4, most of them are created by academic architects who have concerns about urban heritage.

Despite the fact that the development of any urban resolution is done through realizing the geographic distribution of the issues and its contextual relations, most of the information is shared through platforms that do not present the geo-spatial relations among the reported issues. Thus, it is difficult with the current tools to: realize the pattern of violations; identify gaps and areas with less activism, and think of possible interlinks with other GI that might led to identify other potentials. Therefore, there is a need to find other approaches for mapping the shared information and to facilitate the citizens’ participation. Accordingly, the VGI is studied as a new geography approach that can meet such needs. See Figure1 for problem tree analysis that shows the core problem, its causes and its effects.

2.

VGI Literature Review

The new approaches of using GI do not follow the traditional GIS rules or mapping techniques, but are based on the user interest, instead (Sylaiou et al., 2013). Many terms have been introduced to describe these new approaches such as VGI, crowd-mapping, web mapping, geo web, wiki-mapping, and ubiquitous cartography.

The term VGI has been introduced by Goodchild (2007) and is one of the most widely disseminated. It refers to the amateur efforts to manipulate spatial data voluntarily (Elwood, 2009). The term crowd-mapping has emerged from the crowdsourcing which is used when the information is derived from crowd or is, in other wording, User Generated Content (Sylaiou et al., 2013).

Since the emergence of the VGI term, Goodchild (2007) highlighted the concept of building a human network that acts as a sensor by taking the advantages of VGI and Web 2.0 to, effectively, build this network. Moreover, the time-sensitive nature of VGI makes it a suitable tool to track changes through timely observations through a dense network of observers (Cowan, 2013). Therefore, it is recommended, in this context, to make use of the public and the crowd to alert for changes and violations to urban heritage in order to warn the relevant stakeholder who can safeguard it.

Digital divide, data quality, data heterogenous, and governmental concerns are four VGI challenges which are reviewed here for being the most relevant to the study context. The digital divide is a result of difficulties in internet accessibility; it can be resolved by providing other channels for interaction such as providing facilita-

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tors and the system called facilitated-VGI (Seeger, 2008) or by using SMSs that are available for almost all the public. Data quality can be maintained by various methods such as assigning a certain group for review, allowing other users to evaluate the shared data, and the use of automated data filters; and it is possible to rely on the crowd to correct it over time (Deparday, 2010). Data heterogonous is the result of collecting unstructured information from different sources; Standardization is one approach to tackle this issue, despite the fact that it does not match the dynamics of user interaction which is a core characteristic of VGI (Elwood, 2009). On the other hand, providing metadata and data dictionaries (Elwood, 2009) and pre-set categories, where users can select the most relevant to their posted text, are other appropriate strategies to address this issue (Deparday, 2010). Governmental concerns are about information sensitivity, mistrust of user generated information, unwillingness to fulfill the citizens’ requests due to other contextual factors and worries of increased citizens’ expectations (Cowan, 2013; Johnson and Sieber, 2012). Most of these concerns reflect a lack of governance and lack of awareness about the added value of the bottom-up approach and the citizen’s participation. However, the VGI applications can be designed to have secured data and to include restricted access to sensitive information.

Figure 1: Problem tree analysis Source: Author

3.

Possibilities for VGI Integration

In order to determine the possibilities for integrating the VGI within the aforementioned Egyptian context of urban heritage conservation, many applied VGI cases have been studied and a preliminary survey has been conducted to indicate community acceptance to the concept of suggested integration.

The studied cases showed the possibility to apply the VGI applications in different fields with various scales.

For instance, the popular successful project, OpenStreetMap (OSM), is globally applied. It provides road maps for the world-based on voluntary uploaded tracks and points of interest from GPS devices or traced map objects based on satellite images built in the platform for edits. Two analytical researches showed that most of the OSM map objects is created by very small groups of individuals (Mooney and Corcoran, 2012; Neis and Zielstra, 2014). This reflects how a small group can be effective when it is supported with appropriate tools.

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Other studied cases showed the possibilities of integrating VGI applications within the governmental system and how the challenge of the governmental concerns can be overcome. These cases are civic duty oriented systems that are applied in European cities. For example, a German platform called FixMyCity facilitates how citizens can act as sensors for outstanding problems through a cross-platform mobile application (Fraunhofer FOKUS, 2014). The FixMyCity example shows how the notification component can facilitate immediate informing for the responsible bodies and following up with citizens.

Figure 2: Figure 2: Snapshots for Lebanese Crowd-mapping platform Source : (APLH, 2014)

Another studied case similar to the Egyptian context, is when activists attempted to safeguard urban heritage; As a result, crowd-map for urban heritage in Beirut was created. It enables the public to locate heritage structures or archaeology in their vicinity and highlight its status (APLH, 2013). This VGI application is an initiative from the Association for the Protection of the Lebanese Heritage (APLH) which was launched in 2010 and originally established as Facebook group called stop destroying your heritage! which fights the demolition of Beirut’s historic architecture (Harb, 2014). Some applied functions in this studied case can be utilized while developing VGI applications for similar contexts in Egypt which helped to recognize more possibilities.

Other Egyptian cases are studied to show the preliminary acceptance for the VGI approach within local communities, even for simple citizens such as taxi drivers, who follow the recently created VGI applications that indicate traffic status in Cairo and Alexandria (Akl, 2014). HarassMap is another local case that shows other on-ground activities that can be integrated for platform support and sustainability (HarassMap, 2014).

The survey is conducted through two designed questionnaires – the first targeted activists in the field of urban heritage and the other targeted the public community both of which are spatially connected to urban heritage.

In general, the survey findings show that there is no big difference in perceiving the urban heritage and violations between the public and activists’ responses. Thus, it is expected to have data homogeneous; however, this result needs further investigation as the sample size might have an influence on this result5. Findings from both questionnaires showed general community acceptability to the general idea of having a VGI platform to share information and violations related to urban heritage. Most of the respondents showed their willingness to use the suggested VGI platform, despite their expectations of the lack of usage from the authoritative bodies.

This reflects the respondents’ feeling of responsibility and encouragement to share information through easy channels where they might get possible support from other groups such as the international organizations or professionals and local initiatives. As a result, it is essential to develop other ways to coordinate with the local authorities which could be supported by on-ground activities that integrate with the VGI platform in order to attract the ideal groups. Other answers show the popularity of using technologies for sharing photos and locations although there is a certain lack of knowledge about the value of geographical analysis.

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4.

Suggested Conceptual Framework for Collaboration

Based on the analysis of the discussed issues related to urban heritage in Egypt, lessons learned from applied cases and other seen possibilities of the local community’s acceptance for participation, the following is a summarized description of the suggested conceptual framework through describing its key actors: experts; local partners; mappers and donors as well as their roles to give an overview of the included processes (see figure 3).

The involvement of different experts is needed in order to sustain the quality of information within the suggested framework. The study shows the main needed experts in the core fields related to the subjects of study – information technology (IT), GI, and urban heritage – in addition to trainers and liaison. However, other experts could be included in certain phases such as lawyers and accountants. The IT experts are responsible for building the platform and manage data. The GI experts analyze geographic data to identify gaps, violation patterns and intervention priorities. Urban heritage experts provide information related to the historical and urban values. Trainers provide trainings and guidelines for platform users, mappers and local partners with the cooperation of experts and based on their provided information. Most trainings should be available online to facilitate users’ interactions. Liaisons are the specialists who can effectively coordinate with official bodies based on the provided information from experts. They can approach other organizations to intervene with possible support either financially or technically such as approaching international heritage organizations, centers for heritage documentation, and Community Based Organizations (CBOs) that are interested in heritage.

Local partners are the spatially connected to urban heritage who can build direct contact with the local community. They are responsible for overcoming the digital divide challenge by acting as facilitators for individuals who have difficulties using the advanced technology or who do not have access to the internet. They are responsible for verifying and updating the information posted on urban heritage in their context. They should collectively work with liaisons to approach local bodies. They should develop on-ground activities such as organizing sessions and workshops that are integrated with the platform to raise cultural awareness.

Mappers are the geographical data providers. While most reporters are expected to be mappers, it is also expected to have some shared information that is not mapped. Since the information is openly shared, mappers can update maps and correct geographical representations based on the posted information or they can search for GI from other available sources.

In order to sustain the financial aspect, there should be a channel for donation to cover the cost of needed materials for mobilization, trainings, software development and maintenance, and other logistic costs.

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Figure 3: Figure 3: Relationships among key actors Source: Author

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Conclusion and Recommendations This article summarizes a master research about integrating the VGI technology to urban heritage conservation in Egypt. It, briefly, demonstrates a core issue related to sharing information by the public and how the VGI approach can be integrated. In conclusion, it is essential to implement the suggested framework through a pilot project in which users’ interactions can be evaluated and feedback from key actors can be collected. Additional study is highly recommended to investigate the level of interaction of the official bodies with the platform and whether it can be incorporated within their system to reach a higher degree of community participation. Also, the degree of community awareness needs to be studied to understand how far the different groups of the society can contribute to the platform as well as how far they are influenced by the on-ground activities. Further investigation is needed to measure the mutual effect of the platform, on the one hand, and of antagonists with a conflict in interest, on the other hand. For instance, whether the platform eliminates violations or will cause antagonists to invent new tricks to continue with their violations. A final recommendation would be to have an area within the framework that enhances research for new technologies that can contribute to urban heritage.

Endnotes 1. In the beginning of 2011, “social media acted as an ‘accelerating agent’ that helped protesters hold online discussions and organize and stage popular uprisings which, in turn, led to the resignation of two unpopular leaders, as well as their rapid spread across Arab countries, and trans nationalization to the wider world” (Frangonikolopoulos, 2012, p. 10).

2. Mohamed Adel AlDesoky is one of the academic architecture researchers in Alexandria, and the owner of ‘Godran Madina Mot’aba (Walls of a Tired City’)’ blog, that reflects the hard times which the old city of Alexandria has passed through.

He is also a member of the ‘Save Alex’ initiative group which attempts to protect and enhance the built environment of the city of Alexandria through increasing public awareness of what is left of Alexandria’s rich architectural heritage and of other urban challenges that it are faced today (Kamal, 2012).

3. Mohamed ElShahed is a Cairo-based scholar and researcher who initiated the ‘Cairo Observer’ which targets “architects, journalists, historians, artists, and residents to find and share content that offers ways for understanding, representing, and improving the city” through bringing together personal interpretations, historical anecdotes, current news, relevant links, and useful lessons from elsewhere that may help readers to rethink of Cairo (ElShahed, 2011).

4. Shaimaa Ashour, is an active academic architecture researcher in Cairo. She initiated ‘Shaimaa-Keep Hunting Photos’ that shares many thoughts and references about Egyptian heritage without specifying a place. She also initiated an electronic newsletter that focuses on Egypt and the Middle East, called ‘The IO Weekly’, which is identified as “An information hub seeking to ‘connect’ individuals and collectives by ‘sharing’ fresh news about the city’s built environment; space, architecture, and heritage” (Ashour, 2012; Stadnicki, 2013).

5. Sample size of public was 61, which is considered a small sample but the activist’s sample size is 30 which is sufficient.

References Akl, N., 2014. Understanding the practical experience from Al-Darb Al-Ahmar Revitalization project and other local initiatives by Takween Integrated Community Development. Interviewed by: Heba Badr. (3.23.14).

APLH, 2013. APLH CROWDMAP | Protect Lebanese Heritage.

Ashour, S., 2012. The io Weekly [WWW Document]. paper.li. URL http://paper.li/Shaimaa_ashour/1327336583 (accessed 7.7.14).

Cowan, T., 2013. A Framework for Investigating Volunteered Geographic Information Relevance in Planning. University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.

Deparday, V., 2010. Enhancing Volunteered Geographical Information (VGI) Visualization with Open Source Web-Based Software. University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.

ElShahed, M., 2011. Cairobserver — about [WWW Document]. URL http://cairobserver.com/about#.U7q0L_mSz9U (accessed 5.13.14).

Elwood, S., 2009. Geographic Information Science: new geovisualization technologies - emerging questions and linkages with GIScience research. Prog. Hum. Geogr. 33, 256–263. doi:10.1177/0309132508094076

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Frangonikolopoulos, C., 2012. Explaining the role and impact of social media in the “Arab Spring”. GMJ Mediterr. Ed. 8, 10–20.

Fraunhofer FOKUS, 2014. Management Console [WWW Document]. URL http://www.fixmycity.de/management.html (accessed 6.23.14).

Goodchild, M.F., 2007. Citizens as sensors: the world of volunteered geography. GeoJournal 69, 211–221. doi:10.1007/ s10708-007-9111-y HarassMap, 2014. Who we are | HarassMap [WWW Document]. URL http://harassmap.org/en/who-we-are/ (accessed 6.30.14).

Harb, A.A., 2014. NGO hopes to save Beirut, brick by brick. Dly. Star Newsp. - Leban.

Hassan, F., Trafford, A. de, Youssef, M., 2008. Cultural Heritage and Development in the Arab World Editors. Dar ElKuttub Depository No 22932/2008.

Johnson, P.A., Sieber, R.E., 2012. Motivations driving government adoption of the Geoweb. GeoJournal 77, 667–680. doi:10.1007/s10708-011-9416-8 Kamal, O., 2012. Al-Ahram Weekly | Features | In defence of old buildings. Al-Ahram Wkly.

Mooney, P., Corcoran, P., 2012. The Role of Communities in Volunteered Geographic Information projects.

Nabil, D., 2014. Continous discussions about the situation of urban heritage issues. Interviewed by: Heba Badr. (3.29.14).

Neis, P., Zielstra, D., 2014. Recent Developments and Future Trends in Volunteered Geographic Information Research: The Case of OpenStreetMap. Future Internet 6, 76–106. doi:10.3390/fi6010076 Seeger, C.J., 2008. The role of facilitated volunteered geographic information in the landscape planning and site design process. GeoJournal 72, 199–213. doi:10.1007/s10708-008-9184-2 Stadnicki, R., 2013. Urban activism in Egypt: The emergence and strategies since the 2011 revolution- “De l’activisme urbain en Égypte : émergence et stratégies depuis la révolution de 2011”. EchoGéo. doi:10.4000/echogeo.13491 Sylaiou, S., Basiouka, S., Patias, P., Stylianidis, E., 2013. The Volunteered Geographic Information in Archaeology. ISPRS Ann. Photogramm. Remote Sens. Spat. Inf. Sci. 5, 301–306. doi:10.5194/isprsannals-II-5-W1-301-2013

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Source: Author

Knowledge Sharing in Urban Development Exploring the Networking Potential of Local Communities in Cairo Author: Katharina Frieling Supervisor 1: Prof. Dr. Youhansen Yehya Eid, Professor of Urban Planning - Ain Shams University, Egypt Supervisor 2: Vertr. Prof. Dr. Nina Gribat, Interim Professor of Int’l Urbanism - University of Stuttgart, Germany This research study explores the global ‘Knowledge Sharing’ (KS) community in urban development and outlines its actors and networks, as well as the applied methods and tools for exchange. KS facilitates mutual sharing and offers accessibility for all actors of every size and capability, thus becoming a collective activity when civic actors hold an active part in their local context and beyond. Moreover, the strong emphasis on face-to-face exchange enables and captures the explicit and tacit dimension of highly context-specific local knowledge; as well as distinguishes KS from the universally applied and prevalent concept of ‘Knowledge Transfer’ (KT). The paradigm shift, from unidirectional KT to KS, challenges top-down development and highlights the substantiation of local knowledge. In the case study context of Cairo, before and after the 2011 revolution, governmental activities have failed to, equally, address all citizens in a top-down development approach.

Consequently, urban actors nowadays create awareness and share knowledge in a network that represents civil society in a debate for the right to the city and public space. Those actors hold the potential to synthesize knowledge from local communities and make it available for a broader exchange, yet they lack the institutional capacity to prioritize KS and thus increase their impact in the city and beyond.

Keywords: knowledge sharing, urban development, urban actors, civic participation, local knowledge

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Introduction The concept of knowledge sharing (KS) is a worthwhile facet for innovation in urban development. Focusing on the field of actors and their accumulative methods and tools to acquire knowledge, KS can become a collective activity in urban development, when civil society actors (besides experts) hold an active part in it – in the local context of their city and beyond. With this strong emphasis on civil society actors, the study outlines KS in the community of practice and thus challenges the prevalent knowledge transfer (KT). Moreover, it serves to, gradually, cover the gap in the literature that lacks to outline and frame a shift in the knowledge environment in urban development towards the application of KS. To create an initial understanding of its purpose and scope, the existing global KS community – with its actors and networks, and applied methods and tools – is outlined, by introducing knowledge networks in urban development. The network examination focuses on the identification of civil society actors as knowledge producers and the integration as well as the facilitation of their contribution to urban development. Community bodies/networks are considered as holding high potential to synthesize valuable knowledge from civil society and offer it to a broader network to exchange the experience of communal action.

The Egyptian urban population is increasingly following a global social movement to claim their right to participate and re-approach urban development critically and, thus, hold their government accountable for decisions that have been affecting their livelihoods tremendously. Since the revolution in 2011, the society has become mobilised and politicised on broader levels. The prevalent urban conditions and the socio-political situation prompted the civic protagonist to take action. Therefore, they continuously exchange ideas and visions and offer clarifications on civic rights. These activities foster a great amount of civic knowledge that is mobilised in local networks and generates KS. Hence, the analysis focuses on KS in urban development in Greater Cairo by exploring a popular local network of civic actors and the integration and facilitation of the public in contributing as a knowledge source.

The following research questions have been answered in the study project: 1. How do Cairo’s urban actors synthesize and share their knowledge for horizontal and vertical exchange?

2. Horizontal exchange: Following the concept of KS, how can local knowledge be synthesized to enhance urban development in Greater Cairo and across distances?

3. Vertical exchange: How does the international community of practice in urban development interlink with the local scale of community networks to receive and share knowledge directly on the ground?

1. Research Design The exploratory research focuses on the qualitative analysis of a case study that serves an in-depth research of the phenomenon of KS in urban development in and across a civic community and its ‘urban knowledge network’ that renders the ‘case’. In the case selection, the context of the Cairene agglomeration and its sociopolitical environment, that has been and still is in a transitional phase since the 2011 uprising, serve as a critical case according to its outrageous exemplary nature (see Flyvbjerg 2006). Furthermore, the context is of specific relevance as it is characterised to offer valuable information that substantiates analysis (Yin, 2003).

The context of Egyptian cities, with their segregated societies, holds a lot of limitations for locals to share their knowledge; moreover selective urban actors in Cairo do not even have KS on their agenda. Yet, it seems to work through various activities and channels and allows a generalisation, as described by Flyvberg (2006), in reflecting on other urban contexts that face fewer challenges towards local KS. The study does not seek to provide a comparative analysis of actors, but rather intends to juxtapose actors and their activities to, accumulatively, explore their approaches towards KS and check their validity according

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to the state-of-the-art methods of the global knowledge networks. The empirical research was carried out to explore the community around selective urban actors that have been active in the dissemination of knowledge through web platforms and public events such as lectures, conferences and panel discussions. The analysis of the potential and capacity of urban communities and civil society actors to produce and synthesize knowledge for exchange substantiates the importance of local knowledge in urban development and create a base for a wider debate on the civic role in KS. 2. The Conceptual Framework for the Research Project The conceptual base for the research study discusses terms and notions that are fundamental to the thesis’ topic. The term ‘KS’ is less explored in the urban development sector, although participation and linkage to civil society are of increasing importance. Regarding KS and its focus on face-to-face exchange to enable and incorporate tacit knowledge – that is, contextual, inherent to the individual or a specific group of actors, and not easy to translate into information – the discussion stresses the need for a paradigm shift in the knowledge environment. A paradigm shift offers new potentials for an increased group of actors to participate in knowledge exchange and establish local knowledge. In addition, the widely spread failure of adaption and implementation of simplistic ‘global’ expert knowledge in urban development and the proliferation of the participation paradigm underline the need for a focus on the ‘local’. KS can help to overcome challenges of unidirectional KT to implement more sufficient development projects in the field of international development cooperation concerned with the urban realm in a diverse global context.

Regarding the notion of participation, it can be seen as catalyser of KS since it strives to create spaces for mutual exchange between a broad field of actors of various disciplines and levels. Thus, emphasis will be laid on participatory activities of Cairene actors. To outline and understand the basic principles of the social capital is important for the analysis of the urban actors’ network, since it enables and fosters the exchange of knowledge within. Hence, social capital is a basic imperative for designing cities through civic commitment and thus verifies the civic capacity in participatory processes.

3. Urban Knowledge Networks Review: A Categorization

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fb

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Local

√

√

√

Global

√

√

weak

Tacit

Nexthamburg

√

Explicit

√

passive

KNOWLEDGE SHARED

Commitment

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√

Offline

√

Online

SDI

Mediator

√

Initiator

√

Recipient

Urban Gateway

COMMUNITY

Facilitator

CLASSIFICATION KS

Producer

CLASSIFICATION KN

Disseminator

KS Attributes

For the review of global examples for urban knowledge networks, three networks have been critically analysed and categorised in adapting the indication of ‘disseminators’, ‘producers’ and ‘recipients’ of knowledge from the conceptual review. The review showed that, in the process of KS, the involved network of actors takes more roles than the ones extracted from literature: an actor can also take the role of an ‘initiator’, ‘facilitator’ or ‘mediator’ in KS. For the categorisation of KS approaches extracted from the network examples, a table has been drawn to summarise the important factors and highlight the classifications (see tab. 1).

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Global Knowledge Network passive passive

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Table 1: Matrix of Categorisation of Global Knowledge Networks Source: Author

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The examination helped to gain insight on how KS can take place in established networks (of civic actors and development organisation) across the world, and how they foster the contribution of civil society. Those networks reach out to other urban contexts in the civic approach of SDI and Nexthamburg, without a previous link to the development organisations that are the predominant player in urban development. The Urban Gateway represents such a player, yet it rather offers explicit information and networking opportunities, but learning through knowledge exchange does, obviously, happen to a moderate extent. All observed networks cover an international performance by promoting their initiatives online, thus enabling free access to a wide range of knowledge. Moreover, the Urban Gateway and SDI hold links to Cairene urban actors. Such links help to reflect on the impact of KS on the ground.

4. Trans-local Actors in KS: Mapping Cairo’s Urban Knowledge Network Out of the collection of actors in Cairo, including the key actors TADAMUN (@TAKWEEN), CLUSTER, MEGAWRA and SOY, a ‘naturally’ grown social network was identified in which participants hold different roles and are linked for various reasons and in various ways. This network was described as the Cairene ‘Urban Knowledge Network’. The key actors hold an integral position in KS in the urban development community.

This is reflected in their accumulative and diverse methods and tools to disseminate knowledge, integrating explicit and tacit knowledge and/or their distinctive approaches in reaching across distances to disseminate and

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SOY

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EIPR

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MADD

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Cairofrombelow

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Cairoobserver

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Shadow Ministry of Housing

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Right to City and Public Space

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International Agencies UN HABITAT GIZ CEDEJ

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√ √ √

FORD FOUNDATION

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Table 2: Matrix of KS Attributes of Urban Actors in Cairo Source: Author

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Local

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Global

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Horizontal

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MEGAWRA

Vertical

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BLOG

Lectures

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Forum

Workshops

Publications

Training

Guidelines

Mediator

Database

Facilitator

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Conference Participatory Projects Learning Network

Initiator

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Exposition

Recipient

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√

√

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v

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√

√

√

√

√

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CLUSTER

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√

√

TAKWEEN

Urban Actors in Cairo Local Initiatives

SCOPE

Technical Support

TOOLS

Research

METHODS

Producer

CLASSIFICATION

Disseminator

KS Attributes

receive knowledge on the level of the community (see tab. 2). The actors’ focus on civic participation and participatory community work also fosters KS, as previously emphasized through the reflection in the conceptual chapter. Furthermore, the newly applied processes of engagement in Cairo facilitate KS through face-to-face meetings, direct and passionate deliberation, and an emerging sense of ownership (Elhady & Nagati, 2014).

This renders a good basis for controversy. According to Fernie et al. (2003, p. 180), “debate, dialectic and collective enquiry and thus a focus on controversy” are central to KS.

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√ √ √ √

√ √ √ √

√ √ √ √ √

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√ √

√ √ √

√ √ √

√

√ √ √ √

The previous matrix illustrates the great variety of roles and approaches that apply to the key actors of this study and thus proves their capacity in KS. Moreover, it shows that the approach and performance of the key actors is just as comprehensive as those of international development agencies that are engaged in the dissemination of knowledge nowadays in KS (previously KT) and since decades. The classification of the actors’ approach in KS makes them an integral part of the ‘Urban Knowledge Network’.

In addition to the classification matrix, the urban actors’ network was mapped in reflection on the actors’ cooperation in knowledge production (e.g. through common projects, event, etc.) and participation in KS events.

The mapping aims to illustrate the flow of knowledge fostered by ‘cooperation’ and ‘participation’ in an abstract way; therein arrows indicate the nature (colour) and direction of flows (see fig. 1). The red arrows indicate ‘participation’, which is understood here as interest, engagement and attendance in the events of the entity that is directed by the arrow. The blue arrows indicate the ‘cooperation’ or support in projects of respective entities or between entities in a common project (on the ground) or initiative. The pink arrows indicate the ‘facilitation’ of activities of the respective entity/initiative (also directed from the source to the end of the arrow).

This facilitation happens through resources and support (e.g. of missions, through advice, etc.) and can either be of financial or – as in most cases – of other physical and/or spatial natures. Participation, cooperation and/ or facilitation are, in almost all cases, based on the engagement of one or two individuals of an entity or initiative (respectively the interviewees).

Figure 1: Mapping of Knowledge Flows in Urban Knowledge Network Source: Author

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Although the illustrated network is, in its nature, imaginary, there certainly exists an acknowledgement and an agreement of the actors’ status of belonging. Some of them specify the network as informal and pragmatic, yet it holds the potential to achieve its common visions for urban development in Cairo and maintain a certain status quo of mobilisation and awareness creation through KS.

Conclusion The Egyptian revolution of 2011 caused an immediate and controversial dialogue on rights based issues of urban development and triggered the proliferation of urban initiatives lead by empowered civil society protagonists. The post-revolutionary modes of practice established a ‘new urban citizenship’ when people took action to fill the gaps that the government has caused. The evolution of capable urban actors with the same visions and expectations gradually originated a network in which today’s vivid exchange takes place to shed light on urban realities and rights and proliferate ideas for urban development on various occasions. Therefore, the exchange of knowledge became an issue for new urban actors to keep the momentum of change; this on-going dialogue created the base for KS. The urban actors in Cairo have the capacity to synthesize the local knowledge of the Cairene communities into knowledge for exchange. Urban actors are capable of augmenting their own explicit knowledge with context-specific local knowledge, thus make it accessible for others in their urban context and beyond. The study proved that the consideration of local knowledge is highly important in urban development and that this knowledge, when neglected by those who rule, can be advocated by civil society representatives. Hence, urban actors are already producing and disseminating knowledge by adopting diverse methods and tools that foster KS. Moreover, they take leading roles as initiator, facilitator and mediator in KS and the study showed that their approaches are comprehensive in comparison to the methods of global urban knowledge networks.

Nonetheless, the urban actors did not yet incorporate the concept of KS and they would, thus, need to determine their institutional frame for the future to keep pace and be able to continuously elicit knowledge from their vibrant context.

Furthermore, the urban knowledge network and the links of its actors and flows of resources and knowledge therein are social capital that composes the capacity of civil society which, therefore, needs to be fostered. The urban actors in the Cairene network are collectively maintaining the status quo of mobilisation and show commitment to respond to the public by holding the government accountable. Hence, they create controversial public dialogue that transports civic needs and demands, when the opportunity for citizen participation to affect socio-political decision-making in planning and policy is not given. However, claims of the revolution were not fulfilled and hope in the post-revolutionary period is gradually decreasing. Nevertheless, urban actors continue their actions and keep the network and dialogue alive to, permanently, repeat the civic cause and lay the foundation to reach a change in the long term.

Abbreviations CEDEJ CLUSTER EIPR GIZ NGO SDI SOY UN HABITAT

Centre d’études et de documentation économiques, juridiques et sociales Cairo Laboratory for Urban Studies, Training and Environmental Research Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (German Development Cooperation) Non-Governmental Organisation Shack/Slum Dwellers International Spirit of Youth Association United Nations Human Settlements Programme

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References Elhady, N., & Nagati, O. (2014). When Revolution meets Design Studio: Initiating Academic Debate on “A New Urban Order”. In R. Stadnicki (Ed.), Égypte-monde arabe No.11-3e série - Ville et Révolution en Égype (City and Revolution in Egypt) (pp. 267–282). Cairo: CEDEJ - Centre d’études et de documentation économiques, juridiques et sociales.

Fernie, S., Green, S. D., Weller, S. J., & New. (2003). Knowledge Sharing: Context, Confusion and Controversy. International Journal of Project Management, 21(3), 177–187.

Flyvbjerg, B. (2006). Five Misunderstandings About Case-Study Research. Qualitative Inquiry, 12(2), 219–245. doi:10.1177/1077800405284363 Yin, R. K. (2003). Case Study Research Design and Methods (3. ed., p. 181). Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications.

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Collage done by the author Source: Photos taken by the author 2014, Le Corbusier 3 million city

Contextualising the Right to the City, Between Squatting and Adaptive Reuse Learning from Amman and Cairo Author: Nuha Innab Supervisor 1: Prof. Dr. Mohamed A. Salheen, Professor of Integrated Planning and Design - Ain Shams University, Egypt Supervisor 2: Vertr. Prof. Dr. Nina Gribat, Interim Professor of Int’l Urbanism - University of Stuttgart, Germany This study aims to contextualise the right to the city in Amman and Cairo. It will go through different examples and analyse them in relation to influences around them. In order to put that into a theoretical context, terms like justice and equality, anarchy and democracy, utopia and radical reform, were examined in relation to the right to the city and, then, highlighting concepts like justice, individualism and collective local organisation in a neoliberal context. Proposing what we see in informal settlements, from squatting to service provision, independently from the government, could be the ultimate case of democracy besides to the hypothesis that political shifts and events have affected in having real change or not in both cities. In Amman, the state power has been replaced with capital power. On the other hand, in Cairo, a revolutionary perspective is seen in local communities.

Keywords: Right to the City, State Capital, Contestation, Local Organization

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Introduction As a background, the political and economic shift in Amman and Cairo will be examined, having affected the relation between citizens and their cities. “The historic shift in the periphery from socialist and populist regimes into liberal economic policies, [...], has led to the erosion of much of the social contract, collective responsibility, and welfare state structures� (Bayat, 2010, p.43). Also, how this economic shift to a more open economy affected the relation between citizens and their city, and how the right is perceived from different sides. At last, examples of financially and structurally independent groups, that were active in their neighbourhoods, are introduced and examined in relation to their contexts to evaluate external and internal factors that were influential in the process.

1. Contextual Background/ Political Contestation Amman and Cairo share major historic events, yet turnovers between both cities were crucial and very critical in defining the relation between citizens and the authorities. As a result, their cities have become complexes, creating different understandings for rights in both cities.

Amman was mainly made up by major displacements, Palestinians, Circassians (Caucasian), Armenians, Lebanese and Syrians (Hamarneh, 2002, p.172). Amman ended up with no Ammani, and Jordanians fled to their home cities due to the new connection to Amman which was, then, a new city, without a long history to share with its inhabitants. Therefore, Amman represents the state, the administrative and financial centre, but when it comes to heritage, inhabitants refer to their home cities or villages, whether Palestinians, Jordanians or Circassians.

Transformation in Amman varied from high political contestation (a scene for battles between the Jordanian army and the Palestinian fighters) to a face of an open economy and liberalisation. The new face will transform the city to a city with big investment projects, representing the new state authority, as well as the privatised and exclusive state.

The shift to more privatization in both cities is one of the characteristics of neoliberal restructuring, in addition to promoting individualism and strong private property right (Peck & Tickell, 2002, p394). Therefore, in order to survive the neoliberal transformation or the capital power in the city, one will have to accept the individuality of the solution, unless it was as collective as a neighbourhood built and managed by its community.

A class and a capital contestation is a result of the new shifts. It is not only a spatial segregation between two groups, but also a prevention of a specific group from participating in decision making, or the indirect exclusion of certain groups, from an activity or a place, because they cannot afford it.

If the space in the city is limited to one group, whose loyalty to the system is not questionable (which is the equivalent to injustice against a specific class), it is, in fact, injustice. One will guarantee political stability, and the other one, the money influx.

2. Repositioning right If the spaces, which are produced by two competitive or hostile societies, are hostile and competitive, these spaces will compete for their existence, and outgrow each other. In return, media, officials and collective consciousness will keep on illustrating the good as the ordered and the better facilitated. The one with the nice image is considered the right one in the public discourse.

Spatially Two examples are the focus here as a representation of neoliberal shifts in the economy and a contestation between the state-capital and the citizens in the city – Al-Abdali in Amman and Cairo 2050 in Cairo.

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Al Abdali development project was launched in 2006 as a master plan and as a real estate company with a public-private partnership. It was planned as a “world class development” that will attract foreign investors and businesses, and put Amman on the world map1. The project is set on a military-owned land and, partially, on a private property land. This opened the case of property dispossession. In addition, this project introduces a new type of development, which counts mainly on capital influx, high class users, and less local dwellers and commuters by relocating the existing facilities such as the bus terminal. In order for this project to be realised, a partnership between multinational corporations and the state has been tailored, through the establishment of new regulating bodies, such as the National Resources Investment and Development Corporation (MAWARED) (Daher, 2008, p.48). Such a separate regulation body will guarantee an easier process, away from the bureaucracy of the state, and as well as an independent financial management. The public-private partnership was not the only facilitation for Al-Abdali project. The state property and dispossession law, which was issued in 1974 (Jordan Juridical Bureau, 2011), eased the purchase of the land from private owners with their acceptance or not.

Cairo 2050 in Cairo is still a plan. Though still not constructed, the plan for the relocation is ongoing. The project will relocate the inhabitants of Boulaq area including the areas of Ramlet Boulaq and the Maspero triangle due to the development which will take place on the Nile Corniche. A neighbourhood such as Boulaq is a genuine part in the fabric of the city (Cairo from Below, 2013), and located in a vital location in the city, that gives it its high land value. This contestation in this area was between the inhabitants and the new development (stakeholders), since the development will relocate and bring new commuters to the area.

These two projects represent a competition between what was already there, from buildings, services and inhabitants of those areas, with the new development and users. That is only accessible for a privileged minority, a minority which can pay 10 JDs (10 Euros) for a cup of coffee (in Amman). As for Cairo 2050, it is clear that it is promoting a new image for Cairo, which is another Dubai, with high-rise buildings, fountains and mainly spaces that beautify the city and push the unwanted inhabitants and settlements away from the centre. Decisions related to these projects are made by officials who are appointed, not elected, with support from the government on many levels such as laws and facilitating bodies. This leaves the door open for manipulation, especially when addressing people who are vulnerable like informal settlers or less fortunate areas.

Discursively In Cairo, the class struggle is illustrated in the contestation over the space between classes – implicitly, by the growing numbers of gated communities and informal settlements, and explicitly, by pushing the unwanted outside the vital centre. In Amman, in addition to the class struggle, there is an ongoing friction, under the surface, about the true identity of a Jordanian. The contestation over space in Amman and Cairo is explicit in Al-Abdali project in Amman, and in Cairo 2050 in Cairo, with gentrification processes that happened in Amman, and that are due to happen in Cairo.

The interpretation of the right to the city is not limited to one understanding. Also, the fact that claiming rights to the city is an act of shaping power over the processes of urbanisation (Harvey, 2008, p.24) made it important for authority and actors involved in the previous projects to promote their understanding for rights. This understanding was built up on previous characteristics about informality (in Cairo) as problematic, and the solution for it would be to replace it with new developments. In Amman, the interpretation of rights and a just situation were illustrated through three cases – one built project, and a social initiative, both are claiming that they are bringing the West of Amman with the Eastern part which are less fortunate together2. The third case was an initiative concerned with urbanism in Amman. The three cases had a lack of depth in their outcomes due to the lack of active participation from the residents of the areas targeted (in East Amman), or the nonparticipation at all in the built project (the electricity hangar). This, indirectly, fostered and pointed out, even more, the class struggle in Amman. This happens when the solution comes from a specific class, and the deci-

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sion is not shared with the group which is the target from the beginning.

On the other hand, in Cairo, some cases in informal areas have illustrated how autonomous groups can organise themselves in their neighbourhoods, and with such a local independent body, they could have a more just understanding for rights in their neighbourhoods.

3.

Right Contested

The analysis for the cases has counted on pointing out influences; i.e. factors that affected the outcome. They pose the question: of how local independent groups could work in cities with bureaucratic systems and less resources. The case studies that are analysed under such questions are in Cairo, located in different areas of the city. Ard El-Liwa, Mit Oqba and Ramlet Boulaq all are informal areas, but the three have different contexts, considering the vulnerability of the cases with factors such as land value, media coverage, the involvement of the community and having influential people who support the case. Therefore, the cases are contextualized in reference to each other. By contextualising the cases, meaning, pulling out threads from each context, and finding factors that intersect between the cases, before measuring the effects of these factors on the outcome.

This process will highlight certain aspects that can be reflected on other cases, and answer questions like: Why do some local community organisations work better than others?

Figure 1: Vulnerability scale Source: Google Earth map, photo taken by author

Three cases are the main focus here – Ard El-Liwa and Mit Oqba in Giza, and Ramlet Boulaq in Cairo. The first one has a neighbourhood committee which was formed in the 1980’s. It has helped in providing the neighbourhood with different services, worked as a facilitator, continued after the revolution to attract young people from the area to participate, and was named the public coalition of Ard El-Liwa. Mit Oqba’s committee was formed after the revolution as a continuation for its spirit, and consists, mainly, of active initiators. The third

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case, Ramlet Boulaq, has previously been mentioned as the area under the threat of evacuation due to the plan of Cairo 2050.

The service provision in Ard El-Liwa was financially independent from the government, counting on members in the community who are financially capable of supporting these initiatives . In addition, expert support, externally and internally, was provided to find solutions and alternatives to imposed governmental projects in the area. In Mit Oqba, since the committee was established immediately after the revolution , it did open the door for active participants in the neighbourhood with no preferences. This horizontal structure has helped in having more active participation. The mobilisation in Mit Oqba has counted on the collective movement of the groups and the democratic agreement, implicitly, taken, based on the common need. This resulted in pushing specific demands that were vital for the whole neighbourhood such as gas and medical care provision.

In Ard El-Liwa, the organizational structure in the neighbourhood was counting on having the committee as the linkage to officials and any external stakeholders or actors such as media and external experts. This body gave some sort of hierarchy and dependence on the coalition, and had less active members.

The last case is Ramlet Boulaq which is the most vulnerable among the three cases because of its contestation with a major investment (Cairo 2050). The vulnerability of the case, due to the land value against the informality of the neighbourhood, made the residents’ position very weak against the state-capital alliance. The other thing is that the case here was not concerned with service provision (though needed), but was rather a struggle of survival (Interview: Zayed, ECESR, 2014) . The mobilisation in this neighbourhood was influenced by political activists such as the student union emerging from the Popular Social Alliance Party which formed an initiative called Neighbourhoods in Names Only , concerned with informal living. The initiative organised and mobilised protests, and communicated with the residents to spread awareness about their rights.

Conclusion In conclusion, there is a continuation of scaling some factors. This can be reflected in the Political shifts in Amman and Cairo. From the vulnerability of some introduced cases to positioning rights in relation to their contestation such as Al-Abdali, Ramlet Boulaq versus Cairo 2050. The following are some of the results. i. Political scale.

If the space in the city is limited to one group, whose loyalty to a system is not questionable (which is the equivalent to injustice against a specific class), it is, in fact, injustice. One group (loyal) will guarantee political stability, and the other one (upper class/investor), the money influx. This was the case in Amman – the shift from the power of state to the capital power.

In Cairo, the collective action of the citizens of Cairo demonstrated shifts between the political and social, and the unplanned (informality). This was, then, illustrated in many initiatives formed after the revolution, since the spontaneous order and the collective actions tend to happen in extraordinary social and political circumstances (Bayat, 2010, p.75). ii. Right contextualised in relation to external and internal factors Factors like land value in an area and, on the other hand, a capital benefit that might be produced from this value, will make the inhabitants in a vulnerable position, especially in a neoliberal economy. However, on the other hand, media, which is also a tool in the hand of neoliberalism and governments, can work as an information resistance. iii. Contextualising the contested right.

The most utopian forms of claiming rights are the ones intersecting with extreme radical forms of injustice,

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when both are in the state of contestation. When there is force, there is a counter force to it. The two sides are very physically close, and their closeness makes the contestation even more visible between what is imposed, and what is done collectively. iv. Contextualising the right to the city between Amman and Cairo.

The right to the city ranges from painting a wall in the street to squatting a whole neighbourhood. Such a right is not abstract, or absolute, but what makes it just and unjust is the circumstances and the factors that accumulated and affected the development of these cases as well as how it was manifested, and how others perceive it in relation to democracy and justice.

Endnotes 1. Al Abdali Development Project, http://www.abdali.jo/ Last visited, 10 July 2014.

2. Interview with Raghda Botros in 2012, Rami Daher, Art Territories, Designing Civic Encounters, 2012. http://www.artterritories.net/dessigningcivicencounter/?page_id=78 3. Interview with Abbas Al Rawy from Ard El-Liwa coalition, 2014.

4. Interview with Mohamed Deabes from Mit Oqba public committee, 2014.

5. Interview with Hatem Zayed from the Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights, 2014.

6. Interview with Fadi Mohamed from the initiative Neighborhoods in Name Only, 2014.

References Bayat. Assef, Life as Politics, How Ordinary People Change the Middle East, Amsterdam University press, ,The Quiet Encroachment of the Ordinary, p.43-64, 2010.

Cairo from Below, Boulaq Abul Ela, 21 April 2013 http://cairofrombelow.org/2013/04/21/boulaq-abul-ela/ Last visited: 15 July 2014 Daher, Rami, Amman: Disguised Genealogy and Recent Urban Restructuring and Neoliberal Threats, p38-p69, The Evolving Arab City, Edited by Yasser El-Sheshtawy, 2008.

Hamarneh, Ala al-, the Social and Political Effects of transformation Progress in Palestinian Refugee Camps in the Amman Metropolitan Area (1989-1999) (p172-p188), Jordan in Transition 1990-2000, George Joffe, 2002.

Harvey, David, “The Right to the City�. New Left Review 53. pp. 23-40, 2008.

Peck. Jamie, Tickell. Adam, Department of Geography, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and , School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK; Neoliberalizing Space, Editorial Board of Antipode, 2002.

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Ashash make-shift buildings Source: Author

Marginalized Citizen and the Right to the City The Egyptian Slum Upgrading Approach in Ashash al Sudan, Giza Author: Daniel Koschorrek Supervisor 1: Prof. Dr. Ayman Ashour, Professor of Architecture and Urban Planning - Ain Shams University, Egypt Supervisor 2: Vertr. Prof. Dr. Nina Gribat, Interim Professor of Int’l Urbanism - University of Stuttgart, Germany Supervisor 3: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Marwa A. Khalifa, Associate Professor of Urban Planning - Ain Shams University, Egypt This research explores the informal settlement upgrading of the Egyptian Informal Settlement Development Facility in ‘unsafe areas’ in regard to the inclusion or marginalization trends. In order to examine these trends, it utilizes ‘the Right to the City’ debate and the ‘de Soto formalizing paradigm’ as a theoretical framework. It further discusses ‘the Right to the City’s’ claims for a democratic urban governance to form a rights-based analysis and the ‘de Soto formalizing paradigm’ to assess the states formalizing approach. The study introduces Egypt’s Greater Cairo in describing planning paradigms, urban policies and politics in relation to the informal settlements. It examines the institutional setting and the legal framework considering the informal settlements. On the case of the slum upgrading approach of the ISDF in Ashash al Sudan, Giza, the research discovers weaknesses in the participatory approach, marginalization due to change in tenure, failure of complementary upgrading programs, unsuitable building and urban design and the provision of infrastructure. It concludes by linking the findings to the wider debates and the wider context of Egypt.

Keywords: Slum upgrading, Marginalization, The Right to the City, De Soto paradigm, Informal Settlement, Egypt

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Introduction Greater Cairo is a city in which the government has, continuously, failed to support the basic human rights of vast parts of its population and forced the citizens by inappropriate polices and deliberate political decisions to take their rights in their own hands. People created a parallel city that exists outside the formal urban development framework of the Egyptian state, based on the needs and capabilities of its inhabitants. This informal part of the city is inseparably linked to the formal. The three governorates (Cairo, Giza, Qalyubiya), responsible for Greater Cairo, can no longer afford to, deliberately, ignore the informal settlements. The informal settlements with around 60% of the inhabitants (Sims, 2010, p. 91) of Greater Cairo have outgrown the formal city. Tackling the further marginalization of these settlements constitute the biggest urban challenge. Greater Cairo’s future lies in the successful inclusion of the informal parts and its citizens.

The Egyptian government is obliged to safeguard the well-being of all citizens, from all social classes. In the past, inhabitants of the informal settlements have had a bad stand and have been marginalized by default.

However, the inhabitants of the informal settlements constitute a majority in Greater Cairo, which pinpoints the need for a more inclusive city. The current state slum upgrading approach focuses on ‘unsafe areas’ – informal, deteriorated and dangerous areas where most deprived and marginalized citizens live. Creating an inclusive city with slum upgrading is a difficult undertaking. Slum upgrading, per se, needs to have an integrated approach to achieve a sound upgrading that lifts poverty and includes citizens into the urban decision-making process. If the upgrading fails, it can increase marginalization even further.

Research Aim This research aims to explore the informal settlement upgrading of the ISDF in ‘unsafe areas’ in regard to inclusion or marginalization trends. In Egypt, the state is currently undertaking slum upgrading in informal settlements and deteriorated areas. In this research, slum upgrading in Ashash al Sudan, Giza, as part of Greater Cairo, is examined. Ashash al Sudan is a small area where citizens live in partly made-shift buildings and simple brick structures. The state has, rightly, decided to set focus on upgrading this area.

The thesis approaches the topic of slum upgrading in employing the wider debates of the Right to the City and the de Soto formalization paradigm. The Right to the City allows to analyze the slum upgrading from a democratic rights-based perspective, whilst the de Soto paradigm supports, with a economic perspective, the analysis of the state’s approach for informal settlements. The reflection on Greater Cairo as context and the slum upgrading in Ashash al Sudan aims to identify inclusion or marginalization trends that can, then, be used to inform the wider debate on slum upgrading (see fig.1).

The Ashash al Sudan as a case study area is based on its particular importance in the upgrading approach.

The Ashash is classified as informal settlement and also as ‘unsafe area, grade II’, based on the level of danger emerging from the site or the building. This grade applies to buildings made of make-shift materials, such as shacks, sites unsuitable for building, solid waste dump sites, or ruined buildings. It does not imply the relocation of inhabitants but fast intervention, instead. Inhabitants of such areas are more vulnerable against failures in the upgrading process than other areas. The Ashash al Sudan area is partly upgraded with other parts in progress as well as others which have not yet been touched at all. This allows to get cross sectional samples from the inhabitants in pre-, in-process and post-upgrading situations.

The research contributes to the wider debates of the ‘de Soto paradigm’, ‘the Right to the City’ and ‘slum upgrading approaches’. It explicitly links ‘the Right to the City’ debate to the field of slum upgrading and illustrates how the theory of ‘the Right to the City’ can be used as a framework for a more inclusive city. The research further contributes to the theory of the ‘de Soto paradigm’ in showing the negative implication of this approach in specifying limitations in the context and in the slum upgrading approach.

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Figure 1: Analytical framework Source : Author

Research Questions In order to explore informal settlement upgrading of the ISDF in ‘unsafe areas’ in regard to inclusion or marginalization trends, we ask the following questions to create evidence that inform the wider debates.

How are the inhabitants of the unsafe areas marginalized in the process of ISDF upgrading projects?

•

What processes marginalized them?

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What marginalization existed before the upgrading?

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How were the inhabitants marginalized in the process of urban upgrading?

How does the Right to the City being reflected in the upgrading of unsafe areas?

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How does the state approach on unsafe areas reflect on the Right to the City and on the formalization of informal areas?

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How does the state recognize the rights of the Inhabitants in unsafe areas?

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How do inhabitants see their settlement in regard to legitimacy?

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What right claims do people have in the unsafe areas?

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How do inhabitants claim their Right?

Data Collection The research is based on the review of official documents from three actors that are either directly or indirectly involved in the informal settlements or the ‘unsafe areas’, in particular. We have examined documents and presentations from the state, international organizations and advocacy planners, on a more specific level, to describe the context and to inform the empirical data. The most important data was raised with 11 semi-structured expert interviews and 5 semi-structured interviews with the inhabitants of the Ashash al Sudan area.

Research Design Methodology We can describe the exploration of informal settlement upgrading of the ISDF in ‘unsafe areas’ in regard to inclusion or marginalization trends as the examination of a phenomenon in a real-life context. To fulfill this setting, an exploratory case study design was deemed proper. This methodology allows “to explore or describe a phenomenon in context using a variety of data sources” (Baxter & Jack, 2008, p. 544). Given the limited scope of this research (time and resources), a cases study seemed to be best suited to explore a phenomenon

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and to enrich theory and practice. According to Flyvbjerg, the selection of a “critical case” is important to allow the generalization of the particular findings (Flyvbjerg, 2006, p. 225).

1. A Democratic City or a Capitalist Surplus Disposal Hernando de Soto states that informality is hindering the entrepreneurial activity and that the process of formalizing informal assets (buildings) would unleash entrepreneurialism and, thus, contribute to the alleviation of poverty (de Soto, 2001). Anti-capitalist scholars claim that this is only benefiting a certain social strata that aim to maintain its power and its position in driving the so-called “development”. The capitalist system relates directly to the city and the built environment as it is the field where the ‘absorbing of surpluses’ is taking place (Harvey, 2008, p. 2). Harvey argues that the capitalist model has reached its due time and needs to be replaced by a radical anti-capitalist model that encourages a new way of thinking about the development and, thereby, the re-creation of the cities we are living in. This is encompassed in ‘the Right to the City’ (Harvey, 2013; Lefebvre, 1970). The Right to the City here advocates for a shift in this power to arrive at democratic decision-making processes regarding the urban recourses and a balancing between individual and collective rights in the legislation and connected entities. The right to appropriate is an important right to balance the solely economic vision on property.

2. Urban Development in Greater Cairo: Politics, Institutions, Legal Framework and Unsafe Areas Cairo was and still is a center of attention in the national development. Even though there were efforts in balancing the development in promoting other regions, Cairo remains a pivot around which economy, politics and people are aligned. Even more drastically, urban development is focusing on the upper and middle class development in desert cities, leaving several core issues of urban development, such as informal urban growth, mainly untouched. Only after a devastating disaster in Duwequa, the government tried to address informal settlements and to upgrade the most threatening areas. In 2008, the Informal Settlement Development Fund was added to the institutional landscape in order to focus on the upgrading. The ISDF funds and facilitates the upgrading, but weak autonomy of local administration (Piffero, 2009, p. 105) leaves directions and efforts to the personality of the head of the governorates. The ISDF upgrading approach, as such, is set up as a developer that aims to develop the area’s cost-neutral in financing the housing for the dwellers of the ‘unsafe’ areas’ with the profitable development of prime land that is freed in the upgrading process. It conflicts with the General Organization for Physical Planning in their field of work and the confined framework in which the NUCA is acting as de facto urban developer for the middle and upper classes. In the Egyptian legislation, similarities to the Right to the City framework as well international covenant to human rights can be found. However, a counterweight to the right to private property that strengthens the social function of property is missing.

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Figure 2: Map Ashash al Sudan, Giza Based on Google Maps 2014Â ; source: Author

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3. Slum Upgrading in Ashash al Sudan, Giza According to own observations, a high diversity of lifestyles in the area and the different building typologies can be found in the Ashash area. We can assume that the people of the old Ashash have legitimately occupied the land and how this, in the following, acknowledges, the legitimacy to appropriate the land. The upgrading process of the first phase allows us to see how the state, in the form of the ISDF and the UUU, approaches the area with a top-down decision-making process that gives little space for participation of the inhabitants. We point out how the preconception of individuals and the fast surveying process might have caused a misconception or ignorance of the customary rights in Ashash. Further does the change from ownership to rent cause higher vulnerability of the inhabitants and neglects the former assets of the inhabitants. Also, the change of the living space together with the failure in the vocational training might cut off the inhabitant’s economic base in the future. The practice of the intimidation of street vendors is against an approach that aims to include the informal aspects of the Ashash. In addition to this, the urban design scheme misses the chance to contribute to a more inclusive urban space that contributes to a better social, physical and economic inclusion of the area.

Conclusion The research aimed to explore informal settlement upgrading in regard to inclusion or marginalization trends in Egypt. It is worth mentioning that the selected case, in Ashash al Sudan, Giza, cannot generally represent marginalization and inclusion trends in similar areas since the institutional setting which each upgrading project has is too specific in the Egyptian context. However, it does allow us to identify challenges in the slum upgrading that need to be taken into consideration in the Egyptian approach in general.

The ISDF’s activities on ‘unsafe’ and ‘unplanned’ areas are a legal recognition of the citizen’s rights in following the obligations of the new constitution and international covenants. Nevertheless so does the process of upgrading contain aspects that contribute to the marginalization of inhabitants in the Ashash al Sudan. The study shows that on the legal, physical and social levels, the processes are rather marginalizing than inclusive.

In the following, the main findings will be summarized.

The participation in the Ashash upgrading approach represents the sole information that aims to control the upgrading rather than encourage the active participation of the inhabitants in the decision-making process.

This has been discovered in the personal opinion from state personnel as well as in the events in the Ashash that have, apparently, been designed only to inform the inhabitants. The survey undertaken in the Ashash did not fulfill his aim to raise the information that is needed for a holistic upgrading approach. It, apparently, left out vital information of the inhabitant’s lifestyle and customs and caused an overwriting of these customs with the upgrading.

The most important aspect of the upgrading was changing the inhabitant’s status from owner to renter. This aspect causes a drastic change from a quasi-secure to a legalized insecurity of the inhabitants in the new housing units. It constitutes, on a legal basis, a change from the collective Right to the City – the right to appropriate, individual use– rent. It is highly likely that this will lead to further marginalization in the aftermath of the upgrading.

Another aspect in the upgrading is that phase I lacks a contextualized urban design scheme. This is, most probably, caused by a decentralization of the state and central institutions that provide local institutions with over generalized design schemes. The upgrading, thus, missed the change to create a more inclusive design that aims to, physically and socially, connect new structures with the surrounding areas in addition to providing spaces that allow to inherit established customs and economic activities closer to their lifestyle. In addition did the upgrading make the inhabitants dependent on their old economic activity and create a risk to lose the source of income in the future. This deficiency comes from the combination of legal prohibition of economic

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activities in the flats, unsuitable spaces for economic activities and the missing vocational training to create alternative sources of income. This can be read as an attempt to cut off any economic base for the inhabitants and certain marginalization in the future.

The situation of the inhabitants in the part which is not yet upgraded is diverse with a range of building qualities and economic activities. People with a lower living standard are more vulnerable against upgrading deficiencies then people with a higher living standard. The upgrading does not differentiate between the different grades of vulnerability and might, thus, cause marginalization effects on particular segment of the inhabitants.

With the research, we have worked out several marginalization trends in the current upgrading process in the Ashash al Sudan area. It is worth mentioning that the case as such is one of the most challenging areas considering upgrading and that it was expected to provide findings about deficiencies in the upgrading process. In addition is the theoretical framework designed to juxtapose the ‘de Soto formalizing paradigm’ with ‘the Right to the City’ debate in order to, critically, assess the upgrading approach. The slum upgrading is a big challenge for Egypt’s future and constitutes a great potential to empower citizens to contribute to an inclusive urban development. In the case of Ashash al Sudan, this could not yet be achieved. However, it contains a great chance to improve the upgrading approach and to create a more inclusive part of the city that enables the inhabitants increase their living standards and that benefits all in a just manner.

References Baxter, P., & Jack, S. (2008). Qualitative Case Study Methodology : Study Design and Implementation for Novice Researchers. The Qualitative Report, 13(4), 544–559.

De Soto, H. (2001). The Mystery of Capital (p. 277). Black Swan.

Flyvbjerg, B. (2006). Five Misunderstandings About Case-Study Research. Qualitative Inquiry, 12(2), 219–245. doi:10.1177/1077800405284363 Harvey, D. (2008). The Right to the City. David Harvey.

Harvey, D. (2013). Rebel cities: from the right to the city to the urban revolution (paperback ., p. 187). London: Verso.

Lefebvre, H. (1970). The Urban Revolution (2003rd ed.). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Piffero, E. (2009). What happened to participation? Urban Development and Authoritarian Upgrading on Cairo´s Informal Neighborhoods. Casa editrice Emil di Odoya srl.

Sims, D. (2010). Understanding Cairo: The Logic of a City Out of Control (p. 335). Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press.

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Cities, Environment and Sustainable Urban Infrastructure

Sadat University Park Source: Author

Assessing the Potentials of Multi-functional Urban Agriculture in Egypt: Towards Cultivating the New Urban Settlements The Case of Al Sadat City Author: Dina Mahmoud Abdel Rashid Noseir Supervisor 1: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Marwa A. Khalifa, Associate Professor of Urban Planning - Ain Shams University, Egypt Supervisor 2: Prof. Antje Stokman, Professor of Landscape Planning and Ecology - University of Stuttgart, Germany Supervisor 3: Dr. Marwa Abdellatif, Assistant Professor of Urban Planning - Ain Shams University, Egypt Multi-functionality, as a concept, is argued to sustain urban agricultural practices. Multifunctional uses can contribute to securing food production, providing additional income, and reshaping the development of urban settlements. New urban settlements are still developing, and have more capability to incorporate different typologies and multi-functional urban agriculture. This paper assesses the potential of practicing multifunctional urban agriculture in these new urban settlements: specifically in the case study, Al Sadat city. An assessment tool is adopted in this research, which helps in identifying the levels and potential of multi-functionality that could be practiced on the local contexts. Three scales of urban agriculture are identified to assess their potential towards incorporating multifunctional urban agriculture; (1) City-scale; (2) medium-scale; and (3) small-scale. This paper demonstrates that there is more potential to practice multifunctional urban agriculture in areas where medium-scale urban agriculture could be achieved in Al Sadat City; and concludes that the new settlements have more potential to be captured by multifunctional urban agriculture, for their benefit.

Keywords: Urban agriculture; Multi-functionality; New Settlements; Al Sadat; Egypt.

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Introduction The world is facing a rapid urbanisation that results in densely urbanised agglomerations and sprawls on the agricultural lands. As a developing country with a total area of about 1 million km2, Egypt is challenged by such a problem. The agricultural land’s total area represents 3.3% of the country’s total area (Alfiky et al. 2012). The area of these agricultural lands has decayed due to urban challenges and issues. In the last two decades, the urbanisation percentage in the Nile Delta region has increased by roughly the double percentage. This rapid urbanisation resulted in a loss of 300,000 acres of agricultural land during the period from 1952 until 2002 (The World Bank 2007). The fragmentation of the agricultural land has resulted in the loss of agricultural plots as the landowners built on their own private plots as an answer to housing needs. This resulted in the current situation of the agriculture in the Nile Valley. An attempt was made to compensate the loss of the agricultural land through the integration of agricultural lands into the planning of the newly established urban settlements.

The establishment of new satellite cities with agricultural peripheries in the form of reclaimed desert lands was one of these attempts that integrated agriculture into the urbanisation of desert lands. Those reclaimed desert lands are in proximity or an extension to existing agricultural lands in the Nile Delta, as in the case of El Obour City and Al Sadat City, respectively. The potentials existing in these desert satellite cities – towards productive green spaces – are resembled in the agricultural lands on their peripheries and the integration of green spaces into the planning of these cities.

1. Urban Agriculture: Definitions and Multi-functionality The adopted definition for urban agriculture, in this paper, is the integration of agriculture within the urban context in a state of continuous growth for both interfaces – agriculture and urban interface. Urban agriculture includes the raising, growing and processing of agricultural plants, specifically in gardens, rooftops, empty public land or field plots by urban residents from various backgrounds. On the other hand, multi-functionality, as a concept, has been associated with urban agriculture (Zasada 2011) as well as rural agriculture in Europe (Gómez Sal & González García 2007; Wilson 2007) as a means to sustain the viability of urban or rural areas, resources and nature conservation. Since land is a valuable resource, especially in urban contexts, incorporating different land-uses on the same plot could be required to maintain land value. Integrating multi-functional uses could take place through combining recreational and environmental mitigation, waste and wastewater recycling, and economic and educational uses. The literature review shows an array of uses and options to be combined with agricultural land use: water management; flood protection; green spaces (The World Bank 2013; Aubry et al. 2012) and offering fiscal incentives to land owners who enable practicing urban agriculture on their private lands.

2. Al Sadat City — Analysing Potentials of Multi-functional UA The city is located North-West of Cairo at a distance of 93 Km along the Cairo/Alexandria desert road. The total area of Al Sadat City is 480 km2, 95 km2 of which are urban areas. The rational reason for selecting Al Sadat City, as a case study, is that one of the main roles of the city is to seize the loss of agricultural land (The Planning of Sadat City Plan 1977). The analysis carried out on Al Sadat city divides the city into three main scales – city-scale, micro-scale and small-scale. The justification for this categorisation is that every scale has its own capacity, potentials and infrastructural services. These different scales are analysed and assessed with respect to this land’s suitability study, conducted by Mahmoud and El-Sayed (2011) in addition to an assessment tool adopted and developed from the literature review. This assessment tool, adopted from Gómez Sal & González García (2007), assesses the multi-functionality of the agricultural land’s use through assessing its contribution to the three dimensions of sustainability. In addition to the sustainability dimension, it takes into consideration the production and cultural dimension in order to sustain the agricultural landscape.

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City-scale Typologies — Reclaimed lands, Farm lands, Green Belt, and Potential Productive Axes: The typologies on this scale act as the green infrastructure planned for the city (as shown in Fig.1). The total areas of these components are about 280 km2 (i.e. 50% of the total area). The majority of these reclaimed lands, farms and green belt are located on lands with high stability, while a minor part lies on moderate suitability. The water supply for the reclamation land area is mainly dependent on ground water supply. Farm owners establish their own wells to cultivate these reclaimed lands. Another potential lies in the linear elements of the city. They are potentials that could be articulated into Productive Axes. The establishment of these productive Axes – see Fig.1 – is adopted from a proposal by Mahmoud and El-Sayed (2011) as the analysis, specifically, reveals that productive streets have more potential towards multi-functional urban agriculture, and especially towards conceiving commercial activities and empowering social interaction (i.e. economic and social aspects).

Micro-scale Typologies — Existing Residential Neighbourhoods— Community Gardens, Potential Productive Streets, Agricultural schools, Educational Institutions, Industrial Zones and Parks: The existing residential neighbourhoods cover an area of about 8 km2 (8% of the total planned urban area for the city). The residential areas consist of various neighbourhoods of different densities. These existing residential neighbourhoods and social housing are considered to be potential on the micro scale; since they have the capacity to incorporate micro-scale UA typologies such as community gardening and family type commercial gardens. An agricultural secondary school such as Mubarak-Kohl1, Sadat University’s park, the existing industrial zone and recreational parks are considered to be potentials on the micro-scale. This fosters and amplifies multifunctional urban agriculture, since they have a potential towards incorporating micro-scale UA practices such as small-scale and semi-scale commercial gardens and community gardens managed by educational institutions. The high potential typologies with high suitability lands are one of the neighbourhood’s parks and part of the future planned industrial zone (See Fig.1). The issue of water supply is considered not to be a constraint for the typologies which already incorporate irrigated green spaces (i.e. recreational parks, Sadat University Park).

Figure 1: Analysis of different typologies on different scales. From left to right: city-scale typologies analysis, micro-scale typologies analysis, and small-scale typologies analysis Source: Analysis by Author (2014), adopted land suitability profile from Mahmoud & Elsayed (2011).

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Small-scale Existing Residential Neighbourhood — Rooftops Gardening (Subsistence UA): The analysis of the small-scale or subsistence-scale of urban agriculture is carried out on the existing residential neighbourhoods in Al Sadat city, especially in neighbourhoods where subsistent urban agriculture is highly manifested in privately owned residential buildings. This residential neighbourhood has potentials to incorporate urban agriculture on their rooftops as subsistent UA (i.e. privately owned rooftops). In addition, they are privately owned properties, and there is more potential to mobilise the owning groups to practice urban agriculture. A sample area was selected from the existing residential areas. Although it is located on a land of low suitability, land suitability is not a constraint when this typology is concerned since this specific typology of urban agriculture will be practiced on rooftops.

3. Assessing and Developing New Models of Multi-functional Urban Agriculture: Towards Supporting Strategies The assessment carried on the three potential scales of urban agriculture in Al Sadat city reveals that there is more potential of multi-functional urban agriculture on the micro-scale, as shown in Fig.2. However, Al Sadat city is privileged with potential multi-functional typologies on the three different scales (See Fig. 3).

Chapter 03

Medium-scale

Large-scale

Mirco-scale

Subsistance UA

Economic Social Cultural Environmental Productive

Land Productive Reclamation Neigborhood Productive & Commercial Green Belt Gardens Axes Farms

Educational Instition Sadat University

Parks

Productive Streets

Existing Residential Area

Neighborhood Park

Potential Industrial Zone

Existing Residential Neighborhood “Potential Rooftop Urban Agriculture”

Land use Layer

Land use Layer

Land use Layer

N

N N Land use Legend Green Belt

Farms

Green Area

Productive Axes

Land Suitability Legend

Industrial Zone

Farms

Existing Residential Areas

Productive Streets

Farms

Existing Residential Areas

Neighborhood Park

Priority Areas with High Land Suitability

Fig.3.13— Diagram showing the assessment carried out on the three scale of potential multi-functional urban agriculture in Al Sadat City. Source: Own, 2014

Figure 2: Assessment of potentials of multi-functional UA potentials on the three different scales and their respective typologies.

Source: Author (2014) 76

The typologies analysed on this scale have more potential to contribute to the social and cultural interfaces, in addition to fairly contributing to other dimensions. However, in order to practice urban agriculture, it is essential to address the respective strategies that would enable urban agriculture, in general, and multi-functional urban agriculture in specific.

The assessment of the large scale shows that it has more potential to significantly cover the economic, environmental, and productive dimensions (See Fig. 2). The contribution of this scale to the economic dimension is that it provides new jobs for city residents as well as improves the local economy through the establishment of

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land reclamation and commercial farms. The supporting strategy to address this function is to create networks to connect workers (see other strategies in Fig. 3). On the other hand, the contribution of this scale to the environmental function is manifested in energy conservation as a result of the reduced embodied energy from transportation distances (See supporting strategies in Fig. 3). The establishment of agricultural systems on this scale can contribute to the diversification of species and native plants and crops when biodiversity is concerned (See supporting strategies in Fig. 3). The productive function on these scales contributes to a mass production of food commodities (see supporting strategies in Fig. 3).

The assessment of the micro scale reveals that it has more potential to significantly achieve economic, social, cultural and economic functions (See Fig. 2). This could be achieved through the various discussed typologies – community and neighbourhood gardening as well as productive streets. These typologies foster the economic dimension through the creation of additional income sources for the residents. They also foster the social activity and interaction (see supporting strategies in Fig. 3). Thus, these urban agricultural typologies can act as a cultural point that links different cultural backgrounds (See supporting strategies in Fig. 3). Moreover, the micro-scale urban agriculture, significantly, contributes to the micro-climatic conditions. It has an impact on humidity control, wind protection, and the providing of shades in urbanized areas.

Developing new MoDels of Multifunctional urban agriculture

Small-scale UA Mirco-scale UA

Large-scale UA

Proposed Typologies

Supporting Strategies

Land Productive Reclamation Neigborhood Productive & Commercial Green Belt Gardens Axes Farms

Educational Instition Sadat University

Existing Residential Area

Neighborhood Park

Ownership, Operationalization, and Stakeholders of Different Scales

-Create networks to connect workers, farmers and markets to further sustain these types of activities -Develop transportation systems and to networks to efficiently get food to consumers.

-Provide suitable, accessible and safe land with good environmental conditions and irrigation systems.

Parks

-Support the transformation of vacant lands into productive spaces.

-To integrate community garden spaces in areas where population come from different cultural backgrounds.

-Allow urban agriculture and edible plantings to resolve the heat island effect & unfavourable climatic conditions.

Potential Industrial Zone

Existing Residential Neighborhood “Potential Rooftop Urban Agriculture”

-Provide the residents with the technical knowledge that would enable practicing urban agriculture on rooftops.

-Establishming networks of suppliers for rooftop gardening equipment.

Residents Commercially Oriented Producers Agricultural Entrepreneurs

Producer Operational Level

City Authoroity Researchers Commercially Oriented Producers

Stackholders

Problem Identification

Legislative

Land Ownership

City Owned

Institutional & Issues

- No Regulatroy Framework - Absence of Caliber Proposed Strategies

Producer

Operational Level

Residents Stackholders Legislative

Land Ownership

Privately Owned

Institutional & Issues

Land use Layer

N Land use Legend Green Belt

Farms

Green Area

Land Suitability Legend

Productive Axes

Industrial Zone

Farms

Existing Residential Areas

Productive Streets

Farms

Existing Residential Areas

Neighborhood Park

Priority Areas with High Land Suitability

Fig.4.2— Supporting Strategies to achieve the comprehensive plan incorporating various potential typologies on different scales. Source: Own

(2014) Figure 3: : A comprehensive plan incorporating different typologies, prospective supporting strategies.

Source: Author (2014)

The assessment of the small-scale urban agricultural model, which mainly focuses, in this paper, on rooftop gardening, widely covers the social dimension of the multi-functionality radar chart (see Fig. 2). Rooftop gardening, significantly, contributes to income generation, subsistence food production for domestic use, and enhancing the climatic conditions of residential buildings through insulating the buildings with gardening on these rooftops (see supporting strategies in Fig. 3).

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Conclusion Multi-functional urban agriculture is of critical importance when the issue of balancing the needs of urbanisation with sustainable development is concerned. The concept of multi-functionality offers incentives to practice urban agriculture where the integration of various uses (i.e. economic, productive, environmental, social, and cultural uses) is achieved on the same plot. Furthermore, it offers more potential to achieve local food production systems that are linked to the urban agglomerations and settlements. Undeniably, the ecological footprint of cities and urban settlements is highly influenced by practicing urban agriculture since multi-functional urban agriculture impacts the production prices, transportation distances, food security and health issues. Meanwhile, the concept of multi-functionality compensates the pressure imposed by the economic value of land. This is well manifested as long as the economic aspect of multi-functionality is concerned.

The analysis of the potentials of Al Sadat city reveals some issues that need to be tackled in order to increase the viability of multi-functional urban agriculture. Another reason is to consider multi-functional urban agriculture as an alternative land use in the cities’ plans, and to make it a rival land use against other land uses (e.g. Green areas and vacant lands). The main delineated issues are the legislative and institutional capacities towards incorporating urban agriculture as a land use. The absence of administrative cadres, mechanisms and systems to manage the practicing of urban agriculture is one of the main shortcomings on the legislative and institutional levels. The root of such shortcomings is the absence of policies and strategies which consider urban agriculture as a land use, and which enable practicing urban agriculture in urban areas. In support of this, the best reviewed international practices revealed the importance of the adopted supporting policies and strategies in these cases.

In conclusion, the formulation of new policies and strategies is vital in order to support practicing urban agriculture and to amplify its multi-functionality. These policies and strategies should address all scales and typologies of urban agriculture since each typology and scale provides a different spectrum of multi-functionality and serves different groups. There are various prospective options in which these new policies and strategies could be taken into consideration. One option is to define the characteristics and percentages of areas that could be designated for urban agriculture. Another option is to convey part of the subsidies provided by the government on commodity products to, alternatively, support the practice of urban agriculture in addition to offering incentives to capture more investments that integrate urban agriculture and industrial entities. In conclusion, urban agriculture, on its own, is not clearly foreseen as an answer to the complex issues of urban areas and the ecosystem. Yet, when multi-functionality of urban agriculture is considered, urban agriculture becomes a compelling and competitive option which can address the complexity of urban ecosystems.

References Alfiky, A., Kaule, G. & Salheen, M. (2012) Agricultural Fragmentation of the Nile Delta; A Modeling Approach to Measuring Agricultural Land Deterioration in Egyptian Nile Delta. Procedia Environmental Sciences 14, 79–97.

Aubry, C., Ramamonjisoa, J., Dabat, M.-H., Rakotoarisoa, J., Rakotondraibe, J. & Rabeharisoa, L. (2012) Urban agriculture and land use in cities: An approach with the multi-functionality and sustainability concepts in the case of Antananarivo (Madagascar). Land Use Policy 29 (2), 429–439.

Gómez Sal, A. & González García, A. (2007) A comprehensive assessment of multifunctional agricultural land-use systems in Spain using a multi-dimensional evaluative model. Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment 120 (1), 82–91.

The World Bank (2007) Tackling the Shelter Challenge of Cities: Thinking it Through Together. Cairo, Egypt.

The World Bank (2013) Urban Agriculture: Findings from Four City Case Studies.

Zasada, I. (2011) Multifunctional peri-urban agriculture—A review of societal demands and the provision of goods and services by farming. Land Use Policy 28 (4), 639–648.

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Source: Author

Landscape Aesthetics and Solar Farms in the Western Desert of Egypt The Visual Public Preference in “Qarat Um Elsaghir” Village Author: Aya El-Wagieh Supervisor 1: Prof. Dr. Mohamed A. Salheen, Professor of Integrated Planning and Design - Ain Shams University, Egypt Supervisor 2: Prof. Antje Stokman, Professor of Landscape Planning and Ecology - University of Stuttgart, Germany Supervisor 3: Dr. Marwa Abdellatif, Assistant Professor of Urban Planning - Ain Shams University, Egypt The Egyptian government started electrifying the remote villages in the Western Desert’s villages by using photovoltaic (P.V.) panels, which will cause a significant physical alteration to the landscape of the area. Accordingly, a research was conducted to evaluate the public visual preference of P.V. introduction in a village called “Qarat Um Elsaghir”. In that study, the public pinpointed the visually preferred P.V. system as well as their locations. Moreover, the research attempted to understand the socio-demographic, psychological and spatial factors that shaped this visual perception. This paper will report on that research and shed light on the importance of the landscape aesthetics in a sustainable P.V. introduction.

Keywords: Visual Public Preference, Energyscape , Landscape Aesthetics

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Introduction In response to the energy sources shortage and energy securities threats, diversifying energy sources and fostering the renewable energy sector inside Egypt is considered a key solution. Accordingly, a cooperation between the Ministry of Electricity and the United Arab Emirates was announced to electrify 195 remote villages by solar photovoltaic panels (P.V.) in Matrouh governorate and Upper Egypt (New and Renewable Energy Authority, 2013). This vast development in rarely altered environments would lead to significant physical changes to the landscape which would, consequently, affect the landscape’s aesthetics. For that matter, a master thesis research aimed to evaluate the change in the visual preference of the desert landscape aesthetics after the introduction of a number of different options of P.V. panels in “Qarat Um Elsaghir” was conducted. These visual preferences varied between the visitors and the inhabitants of the village. Accordingly, the research explored the visual perception to the desert landscape of each group and their tolerance to the changes caused by the P.V. panels. This paper is based on that thesis and represents a summary of its main findings and methodology.

Therefore, any further illustrations require referring back to the thesis itself.

1. Concretizing the Visual Public Landscape Aesthetics Concepts and P.V. Design Guidelines

Figure 1: The theorized focus of the research derived from literature.

Source: Author

In figure (1), the different aspects and interlinks in the literature, which shaped the research focus, and the selected tools were illustrated. On the one hand, landscape aesthetic assessment is concerned with evaluating the holistic experienced and perceived beauty by the recipients in the landscape which includes visual and non-visual aspects (DPCD, 2013). This included four main approaches to measure the visual landscape aesthetics. However, a combination between the psychological and the experiential approaches was chosen in that research. This combination will offer understanding the needs, knowledge, culture and socio-economic status of the public, and thus describe the interaction between the community and the landscape. These factors were categorized by (Devine-wright, 2007) as socio-demographic, psychological and spatial. On the other hand, renewable energy is decentralized with new shapes, infrastructures and relations with the landscape. As a result, (Howard et al., 2013) defined “Energyscape” as the spatial needs for energy provision in a landscape including supply, demand and infrastructure. Accordingly (Stremke, 2013) highlighted the integration mechanism where the socio-cultural criteria with their aesthetic and sensual experience components constituted quarter of the sustainable cycle.

This theorized framework required collecting the minimum technical data concerned with the P.V. panels and adapt them to the context of the western desert by consulting an Egyptian technical engineer. Firstly, the research focused on the stand-alone system as most of the communities in the Western Desert of Egypt are away from the main grid. This system is either centralized to supply the whole community or decentralized for each house. Secondly, the operation and maintenance efficiency and affordability of the system were crucial in

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order to select the appropriate location for the centralized systems. These aspects are highlighted in figure (2).

Finally, the calculations for the P.V. system sizing, tilt angles, clearance distances between the rows and the exact needed area of the stand-alone systems depend on the daily energy consumption needed as well as the latitude (Gaiddon, Kaan, & Munro, 2009).

Figure 2: The site selection conditions for a centralized stand-alone P.V. system.

Source: Constructed after (Miller & Lumby, 2012) and (Nader, 2014)

2. The Case of “Qarat Um Elsaghir” Village

Figure 3: Accessibility to the village.

Source: Google maps and modified by the Author

‘Qarat Um Elsaghir” is a small village in the Western desert of Egypt with a 125 km² area and a population of 568 inhabitants (Bakr, 2014). It is located at the West of Qattara Depression and North-East of Siwa oasis, under the province of Matrouh governorate, and follows the municipality of Siwa (Matrouh Governorate, 2014).

As shown in figure (3), the only paved road is branched from the Siwa–Matrouh main road where the journey takes 270 km from either Siwa or Matrouh.

In figure (4), the village is located in the middle of the western desert where the yellow color dominates the surrounding environment. Almost all of the village’s settlement is on a flat terrain, where the eastern side of the village contains palm trees and farmland separating it from an irrigation discharge lake. The two mountains, “Shali” and “Pharaoh”, are famous sightseeing locations in the village.

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Figure 4: Identifying the visual character of the village.

Source: Author

Housing and Energy: According to the timeline in figure (5), the physical environment of the village changed rapidly in the last 30 years, where changes in the lifestyle, needs and perception of the residents occurred consequently. Meanwhile, ‘Shiekh Mahdy “the village’s leader stated that “people are used to burning wood and farming waste as a source of heat, where houses have local stoves until now. As for lighting, we used oil lamps for some hours after sunset”. The situation changed by mid-1980s when the government provided the village with a diesel generator (Bakr, 2014). In 2010, the New and Renewable Energy Authority implemented a project to electrify the existing 75 houses, school, mosque and clinic with P.V. solar panels. The project provided the houses with a limited number of P.V. panels which operate 5 lamps and a T.V set for each house for around 5 hours/day. By asking the residents about their opinions, they mentioned that these panels do not satisfy all of their electrical needs and asked for more panels. Moreover, they complained about the lack of maintenance to the P.V. systems and the breakdown of some systems in houses and lighting poles.

Figure 5: Housing and infrastructure timeline.

Source: Author

Culture and Traditions: The village’s leader in (Shell Middle East, 2008) said that residents came to this village 1,200 years ago originated from one of the Siwan Barbarian tribes called “Al-Hamudat”. Accordingly, they share with Siwa the same culture, traditions and speak the same “Amazigh” language. Their remoteness and the same origin have led to a strong bond between the residents. The community is very conservative, where gender mix is kept to a minimum. According to the females’ sample, boys and girls go to the same school together. However by the age of 13, females stay at home helping their mothers or work on palm handicraft. On the Contrary, males can complete their education outside the village or work in farming. According to (Amna,

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Mobarka, Hassan, & Asmaa, 2014), females can go out for home visits but should return back before sunset and wear specific dress codes. Accordingly, the outdoor daily life of the residents was found almost static, as shown in figure (6). In addition, the residents expressed their future vision where figure (7) represents an abstract visualization of these visions. The residents aspired for a more outdoor lifestyle in the farmlands and local markets besides to being connected to other villages and cities through new paved roads and mobile networks. Meanwhile, the influence of the images provided through the television was significantly obvious in how they perceive the shape of their future houses. Moreover, increasing the number of P.V. panels was demanded, as they perceive this as enrichment to their community and a mix between originality and modernity.

Figure 6: Daily outdoor life routine of the residents.

Source: Author

Figure 7: Abstract visualization to the physical status quo and the residents’ future image of the village.

Source: Author

Economic Activities: The main economic activity in the village is agriculture besides to some raising animals and palm handicraft (Hamza, 2014). Meanwhile, tourism is not considered as a significant economic activity despite the presence of sightseeing areas and their famous handicraft products. This is due to many reasons – its remoteness and poor accessibility, the necessity to issue a security permit from the military to enter the village and the absence of a place for visitors to stay overnight (Bakr, 2014).

3. Designing the Visual Public Preference Measuring Tool Measuring the public visual preference required targeting both the residents and visitors. Accordingly, a questionnaire for every targeted group was designed to have the same design rationale. The first part was concerned with measuring and linking the different socio-demographic and psychological factors that might shape the visual perception of the sample. The second part of the questionnaire was related to the spatial factors through comparing the visual ranking of different energy options with each other and with the original status. The questionnaire setting in the resident’s case was based on a collective visual preference of sub-groups in a workshop, while it was uploaded and circulated through the internet in the visitors’ case. By analyzing the energy timeline of the village, a growing need for energy consumptions was obvious, either in behavior or in purchasing appliances. Accordingly, calculations were made for two scenarios – one satisfying all their present needs while the other considered the future energy usage growth. The calculations done for the two scenarios ended up with 5 panels/ house for scenario 1 and 9 panels/ house for scenario 2. Besides, the consultation of (Nader, 2014) and the usage of online calculators from (JRC European Commission, 2014) confirmed a tilt angle for the fixed tilt equal to 30°. Moreover, a 300Wp polycrystalline panel of standard dimensions of 1954*982*40mm was recommended (Canadian Solar, 2013). Overlaying these findings with the site selection criteria produced two

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potential sites for the power plant, as shown in figure (8). Each of the two alternative sites has its spatial and topographical pros and cons which will enrich the proposals. Meanwhile, the rooftop option will require 5m width for the first energy scenario and 9m width in the second scenario.

Figure 8: The two proposed site locations for the centralized stand-alone P.V. system inside the village.

Source: Author

By this stage, there would be two energy scenarios prepared for each of the systems’ locations to be compared with each other and with the original case. These scenarios were rendered from specific viewpoints which should be frequently passed either by the residents or the visitors and at least two alternative sites were visible from them. Therefore, four main points were chosen for the panoramic scenes around the village, varying in their heights and locations. Finally, six rendered scenes were produced for every viewpoint beside the original one, where three of them rendered in 5 P.V. panels/house scenarios for each alternative site, while the other three scenes will be rendered for 9 P.V. panels/ house scenario for each alternative site. These added P.V. modules in each scene were oriented and scaled as precise as possible, as shown in figure (9).

Figure 9: Sample of the rendered scenes for Shali viewpoint.

Source. Author

4. Results and Discussion The total participants in both groups were 79 participants with a balanced percentage. 43 residents participated with a percentage of 49% males to 51% females. Meanwhile, 36 participants took place in the visitors’ survey. Through analysis, the differences between the visitors and residents were pinpointed as follows: In “Qarat Um Elsaghir” village, the presence of P.V. panels had a significant impact on the scenic beauty. However, this impact varied between a negative one in the visitors’ sample to a positive one in the residents’ sample. In addition, the three socio-demographic, psychological and spatial factors shaped the public perception, generally, and for each target group separately. For instance, male residents were found to be conservative, highly attached to the area and unwilling to apply many changes to the village. Accordingly, both the visual and general preference of the energy options were evaluated according to efficiency, maintenance and energy source security. For them, a centralized P.V. system was more secure from vandalism and guarantees better efficiency than the individual one. Therefore, the visual aspect had no role in males’ preferences. On the contrary, females were flexible to visually evaluate the scenes and choose accordingly. Since their lifestyle inside

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the village is oriented toward their home or the surrounding houses of their friends, they ranked the individual rooftop P.V. system as their visually preferred system. For them, they are modern and enhancing features added to their houses where they spend most of their life.

Meanwhile, affordance of the P.V. panels in this community and the past experiences with the rooftop P.V. panels shaped the residents’ perception and preference to set the type, scale and location of the P.V. panels as conditions. Accordingly, they tended to choose the higher, centralized and visible options. On the contrary, the visitors were more oriented to the visual impact throughout the questionnaire. This is due to the affordance of the village to them as an aesthetically valued landscape. Therefore, the original energy scenario with the least P.V. panels dominated the visitors’ visual preferences. However, believing that the community needs this renewable source of energy as a substitute of the temporal diesel one, they tended to choose the least visually distorting scenario, including P.V. panels. Therefore, the spatial factors were directed to choose the least visible, and dispersed and the farthest scenario.

As a result, a difficulty to recommend one visually preferred option by both groups was found. For instance, the visitors chose the centralized system, believing it is the least visible energy option. On the contrary, residents chose the centralized system, believing it is the most efficient and secured energy option. Accordingly, identifying the most appropriate energy option for both groups required omitting the conflicting options. As a result, the west centralized farm had a dominant tendency for both the visitors and residents.

Conclusion and Recommendations “Images are a key element of space because it is so often through them that we register the spaces around us and imagine how they might turn up in the future” (Benediktsson 2007 cited from Thrift 2003 p: 209). Reflecting on the conducted visual evaluation, the research depended on visually developed alternatives of P.V. panels. It attempted to combine the subjective and experiential approaches where tangible findings could be deducted by relating the psychological, socio-demographic and spatial aspects with editable design features in the landscape. Based on this, the community meetings produced a societal layering and stratification which highlighted a difference between males’ and females’ lifestyles. Meanwhile, the importance of the public participation with the developers and technology was obvious. It was not an obstacle in the way of renewable development. In fact, it promoted to a socially accepted renewable energy development. In addition, the importance of persisting and repetitive visits to the study area were necessary in eliminating, highlighting and modifying different strategies to communicate with the residents.

In the first attempt, neither the males nor the females paid much interest to the visual impact or preference of the P.V. panels. Accordingly, different discussions were made to orient the public towards the concept itself.

In the second attempt, the residents were stimulated by the visual scenarios. The females were able to differentiate between their visual preferences and their functional preferences, unlike the males who restricted themselves, in both cases, to the functional preference. Through the discussions, the landscape’ visual aesthetics and the visual impacts by the P.V. panels were, relatively, perceived by the males. However, they were more pressured by securing the panels physically and securing the efficiency of the energy source rather than focusing on the visual aspect. Therefore, setting an operation plan and creating a trust in the efficiency and security of any proposed system is needed. Achieving this will provide a fair chance for the males to express their preference on a visual basis. Meanwhile, the females’ interest was directed towards the places where their lifestyle is located. This emphasized the need to improve their houses and visual environment’s conditions, hand in hand with providing infrastructure and services. Moreover, if the decision-making process aims to promote the area as a touristic place and preserve the scenic beauty, a centralized system in one area is recommended than a decentralized, dispersed one.

Finally, the research aimed to investigate the public preference toward the P.V. solar panels in the Western

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desert landscape. However, the findings of this research were limited to the socio-demographic, psychological and spatial aspects of “Qarat Um Elsaghir” village at the present status quo. Accordingly, the research contributed in the general public preference and profiling of western desert areas. Though adopting the same evaluation approach is dependent on the locality of the P.V. introduction.

References Amna, Mobarka, Hassan, O., & Asmaa. (2014). Group of young Women range from 18-24 years old from Qarat Um Elsaghir Village, Interviewed by: Aya El-Wagieh (25/02/2014).

Bakr, M. (2014). Um El-Saghir Municipality Official, Interviewed by : Aya El-Wagieh (24/02/2014).

Benediktsson, K. (2007). “ Scenophobia ”, Geography and the Aesthetic Politics of Landscape. Geografiska Annaler. Series B, Human Geography, 89(3), 203–217.

Canadian Solar. (2013). Poly-crystalline specs. MAX POWER CS6X-300 I 305P. Canadian Solar Inc. Devine-wright, P. (2007). Reconsidering public attitudes and public acceptance of renewable energy technologies : a critical review (No. 1.4) (p. 15). Published by: School of Environment and Development, University of ManchesterOxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, UK. Retrieved from http://www.sed.manchester.ac.uk/research/beyond_nimbyism/ DPCD. (2013). South West Victoria Landscape Assessment Study Regional Overview Report (p. 30). Victoria. Retrieved from

http://www.dpcd.vic.gov.au/planning/plansandpolicies/ruralandregionalplanning/south-west-landscape-assess-

ment-study Gaiddon, B. G., Kaan, H., & Munro, D. (2009). Photovoltaics in the Urban Environment. (D. M. Bruno Gaiddon, Henk Kaan, Ed.) (p. 204). London: Earthscan.

Hamza, M. (2014). The Village Leader, Interviewed by: Aya El-Wageih ( 25/02/2014).

Howard, D. C., Burgess, P. J., Butler, S. J., Carver, S. J., Cockerill, T., Coleby, a. M., … Scholefield, P. (2013). Energyscapes: Linking the energy system and ecosystem services in real landscapes. Biomass and Bioenergy, 55(0), 17–26. doi:10.1016/j. biombioe.2012.05.025 JRC European Commission. (2014). Photovoltaic Geographical Information System- Interactive Maps. Retrieved from http://re.jrc.ec.europa.eu/pvgis/apps4/pvest.php?lang=en&map=africa Matrouh Governorate. (2014). Matrouh Governorate official website. Retrieved April 22, 2014, from http://www.matrouh. gov.eg/siwadata.aspx Miller, A., & Lumby, B. (2012). Utility Scale Solar Power Plants : A Guide For developers And investors (p. 204). Retrieved

from

http://www.ifc.org/wps/wcm/connect/04b38b804a178f13b377ffdd29332b51/SOLAR+GUIDE+BOOK.

pdf?MOD=AJPERES Nader, M. (2014). Innovation and Technical Development Manager in Gaia for Solar Energy Consulted by : Aya El-Wagieh (10/02/2014).

New and Renewable Energy Authority. (2013). Annual Report 2012/2013 (p. 30).

Shell Middle East. (2008, October). Egypt: A Monumental Wonder Rehabilitation in The Western Desert. 43, 36–40.

Stremke, S. (2013). Energy-Landscape Nexus : Advancing a Conceptual Framework for the Design of Sustainable Energy Landscapes. In ECLAS 2013 (pp. 1–5). Hamburg, Germany.

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Source: Author

Encouraging Bicycling as a Means of Sustainable Urban Transportation in Cairo Author: Eric Puttrowait Supervisor 1: Prof. Dr. Youhansen Yehya Eid, Professor of Urban Planning - Ain Shams University, Egypt Supervisor 2: Prof. Antje Stokman, Professor of Landscape Planning and Ecology - University of Stuttgart, Germany Supervisor 3: Prof. Dr. Mohamed A. Salheen, Professor of Integrated Planning and Design - Ain Shams University, Egypt This article deals with the issue of cycling as a sustainable means of urban transportation in Cairo. Cycling is one of the healthiest and most efficient means of transportation. However, Cairo has few cyclists and rising numbers of private cars cause congestion and pollution. This document analyses the causes of the lack of cyclists and discusses possible interventions to raise the share of cycling trips for transportation. The use of bicycles can help to relieve Cairo´s streets from congestion, and provide independent, affordable mobility for people with low income, who are the majority in Cairo. The document analyses the status quo of Cairo´s cycling culture to examine potential for development. It also discusses contemporary approaches to traffic planning and how they can influence the development in Cairo. Because the urban fabric of this megacity is very diverse and the different districts have particular physical characteristics as well as socially and culturally distinguished populations, the possibility for a uniform cycling development vision for Cairo is limited. Limited is also the implementation of conventional approaches, which work well in other cities. Instead, this thesis presents the particular potentials and obstacles of three different districts. Finally, three specialized, integrated cycling development concepts, corresponding to each analyzed district and one general strategy for whole Cairo are offered.

Keywords: Cycling, Sustainability, Traffic, Transportation, Non-Motorized Mobility, Access to Mobility, Egypt, Cairo, Shubra, Al-Rehab, Ard El-Liwa

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Introduction Traffic is one of the most apparent urban problems of the fast-growing megacity Cairo. The causes for this situation are as diverse as the problematic consequences. They include unfavourable land use and urban planning schemes resulting in long distances between destinations of regular trips, as well as heavily subsidized fuel prices leading to the event of unnecessary car trips, the lack of intelligent and effective traffic management, the insufficient quality and capacity of public transport and the high prestige level of the private car. Another major problem related to traffic is the unfair distribution of access to mobility. Equity in mobility is relevant, because the access to mobility is a key feature for many aspects of life. However, the development of infrastructure supporting private cars has been prioritised in Egypt for decades, excluding the vast majority of the population. Formal public transport, which should be available for every citizen, in fact mostly disregards informal areas, even though they accommodate the majority of Cairo’s inhabitants. Fostering the use of bicycles and enhancing the bicycle culture in Cairo can lead to relief from both above-mentioned problems. Demands, obstacles and potentials for bicycle-based mobility will be analysed in this thesis and possible solutions will be suggested. A special regard will be taken on the mentality and the image of cycling in the Egyptian society.

This factor is crucial for the development of cycling culture, since it is strongly bound to attitudes, emotions and cultural habits.

Cairo is composed of very different parts with peculiar characteristics, which shape the mobility demand and opportunities. Due to the grave differences – including the social level – between these districts, they need specific mobility concepts which accommodate the actual conditions inside the areas and within their contexts.

1. Analysis of the Status Quo Cycling in Cairo is strongly influenced by a complex network of cultural, social, political and practical factors.

Against some local’s views, Cairo does indeed have something that can be called a cycling culture. Though it is not as present in the prominent examples of bike-cities, it still has a very particular character. The use of bicycles, in fact, comprises a great diversity. Based on my own observations and interviews, Cairo’s cyclists can be categorised in two large groups. Members of the first group, the ‘oldschoolers’, use the bicycle as an affordable way of transportation, or even use it to earn their income. The second group is the ‘lifestylers’ who cycle to enhance their lifestyles in terms of fun, socializing, environmentally friendly mobility, fitness, etc. A point of central significance is the people’s mind-set in various dimensions. It accounts for the adverse image of cycling, in general, and the emergence of the sexual harassment of cyclists. The importance of image, especially prestige, cannot be overrated. The more prestigious the image of cycling will be, the more fashionable it will become, the more it will be accepted as a mainstream activity and become a usual commuting mode. Of course, practical and pragmatic problems like road safety and hygiene are very important and must be considered.

Figure 1: Impressions of the Districts Shubra (left), Al-Rehab (middle) and Ard El-Liwa (right) Source: Author

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The observed districts Shubra, Al-Rehab and Ard El-Liwa, differ in their social, cultural and economic characteristics, sizes, development status, population numbers and densities, and their situation within Cairo. Road qualities differ in all aspects between the districts. The residential streets in Shubra have almost ideal cycling conditions, while very wide streets tend to be less bikeable. Al-Rehab’s streets are strong in these aspects when it comes to safety, but perform poorly in providing shade and diverse sceneries. In Ard El-Liwa, the negative factors are poor surfaces and lack of room due to the extreme density. Most cyclists were seen in Shubra and only a few less in Ard El-Liwa. In Al-Rehab, the number of cyclists counted was clearly the smallest. In Shubra, the diversity of cyclist types was the highest. Deliverers exist in all observed areas.

Figure 2: Comparison of cycling activity in the observed districts.

Source: Author, maps from Strava (labs.strava.com)

2. Concepts The general strategy consists of four phases. Certain projects will be active over more than one phase, but might have a ‘core activity period’ when they are particularly important or the circumstances are more advantageous.

In phase 1, a strong network must be set up to be able to coordinate interventions. The team of the independent organization – ‘green arm’ – which is concerned with sustainable transport in Egypt, could be the core of an interdisciplinary work group, which would be formed out of members of other NGOs, leaders of the existing cycling initiatives like Cairo Cyclers Club, GBI or Bike Zone, representatives from bike shops, experts from universities and international entities like the Dutch embassy, and members of adequate ministries. In addition to this work group, a national cyclists association will be founded. This will be an independent NGO, which will work closely together with the work group and all other stakeholders and lobby cycling in the government. Urgent interventions are the taxation or, at least, the cutting of fuel subsidies and the introduction of high parking fees for central districts, while subsidizing the purchase of bicycles.

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Figure 3: List of the proposed interventions and their activity periods.

Source: Author

Phase 2 aims at fixing urgent safety problems and building up a critical mass of cyclists. Raising the social acceptance of cycling will widen the range of potential cyclists. The promotion will, mainly, focus on the usage of currently safe cycling environments, which means quiet neighbourhood streets within a district, and thus, rather short distances. It will point to the equality of women, cycling as a social activity and to bicycles as a means of saving money as well as the health benefits of cycling and the mediation of responsible road behaviour.

Social media already have a tremendous significance for the ‘lifestylers’ community. On a larger scale, cycling events, like group rides, festivals, etc. must not only include the existing community, but outsiders, as well.

Cycling training in schools will be introduced and information materials will be provided via events and media.

Other road users must be informed and trained about how to deal with cyclists, too. Given the strong sense of social community and mutual support in the Egyptian society, community-based or crowd-sourced initiatives bear a big potential. A virtual forum for cyclists to recommend to each other safe and pleasant route alternatives or a mobile application to find partners with similar destinations to commute together would build on this potential. Cycling together will give users additional motivation, more safety and more fun. The most recommended routes will get road markings and signage, and a non-virtual forum for the suggestion of official, permanent dedicated cycle paths will be established. It will collect and rate potential routes, develop a strategy and submit it to the work group.

In districts with high concentrations of ‘lifestylers’, bike kitchens or bike cafés will be opened. The concept combines a place for cyclists to meet and chat with a repair workshop for bicycles and a venue for regular

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events related to cycling. The bike cafĂŠ could become a true hub for the entirety of bicycle culture in Cairo, providing space for the work on its development in all directions. It would address many of the found obstacles and potentials.

To integrate cycling with public transport, bicycle-parking facilities are needed at public transport hubs and other strategic spots. This will make public transport more attractive, too. A parallel, general and profound improvement of the public transport system is necessary. As another factor of comfort, body hygiene is very important for Cairenes of the middle and upper classes and showers or washing facilities at destinations (e.g. workplaces) would be a truly effective argument. Cycling-to-work competitions could be arranged among individual employees, different teams within a company or even between entire companies citywide. In many districts, the introduction of bike taxis, as an alternative to owning a bicycle or using a motor vehicle, will be successful. The establishment of an Egyptian bicycle brand and the installation of a factory will attract many Egyptians, who are generally patriotic people. The domestic production will create jobs and provide deliverers with affordable bicycles of high quality. The implementation of, at least, one symbolic pilot bike path at a relevant spot will be a motivating signal for already-active cyclists and those attracted to cycling.

Figure 4: Relations between the stakeholders after the formation of the suggested institutions.

Source: Author

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Phase 3 begins when the critical mass has been reached. Measures to reach full safety and comfort will, then, be introduced. Possibly, former tramlines will be converted into cycle paths, shaded by trees. Taking away space from existing roads is also an option to enable safe cycling trips between districts and provide acceptable conditions for longer distance deliveries and bike taxi services, as well. Furthermore, all metro stations will be equipped with bicycle parking. At popular final destinations, like universities, showers will be installed for refreshment.

In phase 4, a new generation of cyclists will perceive using bicycles as natural, since they would grow up doing it. They would have a pleasant, safe environment to cycle in and a society which regards this as a normal situation. New and innovative approaches to develop the cycling culture would, continuously, be introduced in order to adapt to changes of lifestyles and mobility needs, or more desirably, shape them.

Concept for Shubra: Shubra’s calm neighbourhood streets are comfortable to cycle, but crossing big streets, which separate neighbourhoods, can be complicated and dangerous. Making crossing safer can be done by easy interventions and would benefit not only cyclists, but also pedestrians. Old cargo bikes could be repaired and equipped with simple seating to become a bike taxi. Existing bike shops and rentals could be more successful and popular, if they would cooperate and form a network with the possibility to rent a bicycle at shop ‘A’ and return it at shop ‘B’. To ease the job for deliverers, their old delivery bicycles must be renovated.

Concept for Al-Rehab: The gated community of Al-Rehab, mostly, has rich inhabitants who have cars, but also a certain environmental awareness and a demand for fitness activities. The roads are bigger and quieter, which enables safe cycling.

Cycling to school should be encouraged and schools should conduct cycling class excursions. Equally important is the task to wise up parents about the real risks and dangers. The idea of a bike café is well applicable in Al-Rehab. Dedicated cyclists exist there, but a dedicated meeting place would contribute to the formation of a community. A bike-sharing system in combination with a drastically improved public bus service to central destinations will make bus trips to central Cairo comfortable, fast and reliable. Al-Rehab’s administrators should be convinced of the economic benefits and the image improvement resulting from the installation of such a system. It is equally important to raise the demand for such a system among the inhabitants to make the administration take action on this. To turn cycling into a new fashion in Al-Rehab, TV, social media and bicycle shops will have to afford marketing, events and image campaigns.

Concept for Ard El-Liwa: The bicycle, as a means of transportation for people with low income, is the most important aspect in Ard ElLiwa, since these are the majority there. The aims are to consolidate and extend the number of current cyclists, on the one hand, and to introduce new ways of bicycle usage, on the other hand. Improving the surface quality will make cycling more comfortable and safe as well as increase the lifetime of bicycles. A first, easy step would be to remove the bumpy layer of compressed dirt on the few already paved roads. Used cargo bikes can also be turned into bike taxis. This business will create new jobs and a new affordable transportation mode. One of the big potentials, the proposed community park between Ard El-Liwa and Mohandeseen, can help to further connect these two districts and create a beginning of cycling infrastructure apart from motorized traffic.

Conclusion The topic gains its relevance from its potential to solve problems in a way that is not yet conceived by many. If more people use bicycles for transportation instead of cars, the severe problem of congestion and the resulting destructive effects on humans, nature and the built environment, could be reduced. Also, cycling could be an excellent mode of transportation for less wealthy citizens, since it is affordable. Without a doubt, big potentials

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exist for the development of Cairo’s cycling culture, though numerous serious obstacles need to be addressed.

Two different, main types of cyclists exist almost fully separated, with different equipment and motivations to cycle, and with different social, cultural and financial circumstances. The social acceptance and the image of cycling play an eminent role in the entire set of problems. The integration with public transport and its quality and effectiveness have a big impact on the attractiveness of cycling. Regarding the diversity of the suggested solutions, this thesis can serve as a tool for independent entrepreneurs as well as an advice for ministries and municipalities or as an inspiration for community-based initiatives.

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Sustainable Construction and Energy Efficient Building Design

Source: Author

Biophilic Design Strategies for Hospitals’ Retrofit Author: Sara Mohamed AbdelMeguid Supervisor 1: Prof. Dr. Mohamed A. Salheen, Professor of Integrated Planning and Design - Ain Shams University, Egypt Supervisor 2: Prof. José Luis Moro, Professor of Architecture - University of Stuttgart, Germany Supervisor 3: Dr. Bakr Mohmed Gomaa, Assistant Professor of Architecture and Environmental Design - Arab Academy for Science and Technology, Egypt Health establishments in Egypt are intensely increasing and expanding in a poor quality and manner. It has become the norm in Egypt to convert buildings, which are incompatible with proper hospitals’ structures and needs, into hospitals.

The purpose behind this paper is to analyse and examine the current use of the natural elements in health establishments in Egypt and anticipate improvements in order to better serve users. This paper will use psychological theories, related to architecture, which state that the existence of nature and landscapes can transform a tiresome space into a much more encouraging space to its users or viewers. The guidelines of the Biophilic design were set and used to assess and analyse examples of health facilities designed with biophilia in addition to assessing the case study.

Keywords: Biophilic design, Architecture, Well-being, Psychological status, strategies,

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Introduction The Right to Health is encompassed in numerous conventions and legislations that highlight its importance.

The output of such policies is ideally improving and increasing health facilities and professionals in the healthcare sector. However, realistically, even though an increase does, in fact, take place in most countries, the quality of healthcare, in general, is in constant deterioration in many countries, especially in developing and underdeveloped ones. Several undeveloped countries, regardless of the existence of various resources such as manpower (professionals in the field), land, etc., have shown poor health care access to those with low-income.

Moreover, health facilities are usually constructed of minimum standards.

This research aims to target such countries in need of optimising healthcare access to patients, decreasing sufferings and mortality rate, regardless of the income rate. In order to allow sustainability to limit patient suffering and develop their healing process, it could be achieved not merely by improving the medical techniques, but by refining the setting and build-up of facilities. Consequently, the research tackles incorporating natural elements and nature logic within the architecture of medical facilities to serve patients and those in need. This stems from the make-up and rationale behind nature and all of its finest details that primarily target humans’ wellbeing. Thus, employing such elements in healthcare facilities should alleviate patient suffering and progress.

According to (S. Ulrich, n.d., pp. 97-109), the theory of supportive designs’ main principle underlines that, in order to foster human health and well-being, healthcare environments should aid and stimulate coping with stress through their design. These healthcare environments should not raise hindrances to cope with stress as this will, therefore, add to the burden of illness. The design of these facilities should incorporate both access and exposure to physical features as well as social statuses since they sometimes have impacts on dropping stress level. Additionally, the groups targeted in healthcare facilities should encompass all patients, visitors and staff. The theory revolves around the notion or perception of stress and to intellectualise or theorise the impact of human beings in the design. This can further develop this theory in measures of wellness that are scientifically reliable. Healthcare facilities should be designed to nurture physical surroundings that embody elements that are considered positive distractions, admittance to social care and support, and controlled physical-social surroundings. Different scientific studies shaped the criteria of the theory of supportive design and proved that it influences the wellbeing.

1. History of Biophilic Design Erich Fromm, a German psychologist, repeatedly used the word ‘Biophilia’ as a characterisation of a psychological orientation. Edward O. Wilson described Biophilia in his book ‘Biophilia’ as ‘the innate tendency to focus on life and lifelike processes’ (Wilson, 1984, p.1). He describes his provocative concept of biophilia through a series of anecdotes and examples from the creatural world. The book explains the case that humans, having evolved in the midst of a natural realm replete with species diversity, need that environment for their basic wellbeing. He projected the prospect that the human beings are innately attached or connected with nature.

Edward O. Wilson pioneered the fact that there is an instinctive bond between human beings and other living systems.

The biophilic design is a design approach that came into sight and developed decades ago and reciprocated E. Wilsons’ demonstrations in his book Biophilia. Simply, biophilia means the ‘love of life’ (Miller, 2013). Wilson and Stephen Kellert, a Yale professor, has long drawn out and elaborated on the idea to incorporate the basic human needs that grew through and became fulfilled by their correlation with the natural world (Miller, 2013).

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2. Importance of Biophilic Design The importance of biophilic designs stems out of the on-going global deterioration, as a result of technological hegemony. As much as technological advancements have positively affected one’s life, it also, nevertheless, continues to have severe negative and destructive impacts, not only on architecture, but also on the society and the world (Molthrop, 2011). Looking at the history of architecture, it is noticed that a prevailing trend reflects a change in the prioritisation of buildings moving away from the touch with nature from being user-oriented towards a more aesthetic perspective (Kellert, Heerwagen and Mador, 2008). Therefore, biophilic designs emerged as an outcome of such aesthetic-oriented buildings. It restricts building design to the interference of natural elements in order to primarily maximize human functioning and health. It focuses on one goal, which is creating a natural-based environment for humans (Molthrop, 2011). The concept of biophilic designs is an attempt to reclaim the fundamental purpose of buildings, which is to serves the user rather than merely acting as visual decor.

The attention restoration theory (ART), a theory developed by Stephen Kaplan, asserts that when human beings invest their time in nature or only observe scenes of nature, they subsequently have a more focused attention. Directed-attention abilities gain strength and are improved by means of natural environments. Former researches have indicated that ART break off into involuntary attention and voluntary attention (Berman and Jonides et al., 2008, pp. 1207-1212).

3. Elements of Biophilic Design When analysing such effects of natural elements on the notion of health care, we also need to take into consideration the different factors affecting the healthcare environment. The health care environment, and by default the patient, is affected by a combination of economic, social, cultural, psychological and environmental factors (Huelat, 2008). This part points out the BD elements and attributes, first, by giving a clear definition of every element, illustrating how it impacts health, followed by the strategies of each.

3.1 Analytical Study Deducing and deriving the guidelines of the biophilic design from the literature review is not adequate. However, analysing examples that used biophilia in their design was intended to further authenticate these elements.

3.2 Khoo Teck Puat Hospital, Yishun, Singapore KTPH, a winner of a ‘hassle-free’ hospital design competition, is a hospital consisting of 8 private wards – 10 subsidised, and 1 classless Isolation Ward. It is located next to the Yishun pond which acts as a natural extension and aims at enriching approachability or accessibility and enhancing the quality of water, bringing into existence new green spaces and inspirit active lifestyles within the community.

3.3 Palomar Medical Centre West, Escondido, California PMC consists of 288 private, single-patient rooms with the aim of creating a high-performing hospital which coexists with nature that supports healing through natural processes. It focused on gardens, views of nature, and natural ventilation.

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Discussion and Conclusion As shown in this research, nature has major positive impacts on the psychological status and wellbeing of humans. Thus, with the quality of healthcare facilities being in constant deterioration, a need for introducing biophilic design seemed necessary. After creating a framework with BD guidelines, the contribution to the topic was evaluating and assessing inpatient rooms in international examples that used BD to revalidate the guidelines and distinguish the design guidelines that can be deduced from biophilic concepts to retrofit in healthcare facilities in Egypt. Subsequently, therapy and inpatient rooms, in the selected case study of ‘57357’, Children Oncology Hospital, Cairo, Egypt were assessed using the framework.

Table 1: Assessment Table Source: Author

The table above compares the assessment results of the inpatient rooms in KTPH and PMC. It is clearly manifested in the assessment results that both hospitals abide by most of the rules and design strategies. Moreover, both healthcare facilities comply with the theory of supportive design since the design promotes a natural environment and involvement of physical features that aid and stimulate coping with stress. Furthermore, target groups in KTPH and PMC involved not only patients but visitors and staff, as well. Even though both hospitals have certain points where they are likely to improve yet, the design ensured the presence and perfection of the

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basic design features. Going forward to the case study, 57357, the table below represents the assessment results of the therapy ward and the two inpatient rooms in 57357.

Table 2: Assessment Table Source: Author

Since the study assesses the presence of biophilic design elements in the examples and the case study, a comparison and a clear description of most of the results will be illustrated. In the AC ward and the NV ward in KTPH, the daylight factor is 2.82% and 2.73%, respectively. Yet, the wards still receive sufficient amounts of daylight, as light shelves are present. However, In the PMC inpatient room, the daylight factor is 2.2%, though the addition of light shelves could make up for the difference. In 57357, the daylight factor in R1 and R2 is 3.2%.

Since Egypt is classified as a hot arid climate, then any increase in the value of the daylight factor will have consequences, especially if there are no shading devices. As stated previously, the criteria for the daylight factor in inpatient rooms is 3%. However, rooms with a daylight factor that is significantly less than 3% are considered to be poorly lit and might be in need of light shelves or artificial lighting. On the other hand, a room that has a daylight factor, that is significantly higher than 3%, will result in visual and thermal discomfort, especially in hot arid climates like that in Egypt. In this case, shading devices will be required to block the unwanted solar heat gain.

The daylight reaches a maximum depth of 2.5 times the window head height. Exceeding the maximum depth results in having the opposite part of the glazing area poorly lit. Excluding entrance areas in rooms is possible in cases where the depth of the entrance increases the depth of the room and results in disobeying the rule. In KTPH, the overall room depth of both the AC ward and the NV ward is 10m, even though the maximum depth, according to the rule, is 7.5m. However, deducting the depth of the entrance leaves the room with a depth of 7.15m. On the contrary, the room depth has to be considered as 10m since there is an extra bed that requires the area to be adequately lit. However, the light shelves in the wards will compensate for any inadequacy.

Furthermore, in PMC, the maximum room depth should be 6.5m and also deducting the entrance from the overall room area leaves the room with a depth of 6.15m instead of 7.20m. Finally, the rooms, in 57357, require a maximum depth of 6.5m. After neglecting the entrance and toilet, the room depth is only 4.84m. It is prerequisite for the glazing area to be in the range of 8% to 20% of the total room area. KTPH wards have a glazing area of 34 and 33%; PMC 15% and 57357 inpatient rooms have a glazing area of 23.4%. Overheating, thermal discomfort and sun glare will be the consequence of large glazed areas. A minimum of 6 air changes per hour is required in naturally ventilated rooms. In PMC, the inpatient rooms experience 16 ACH and 9 ACH in KTPH’s

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naturally ventilated ward. Therefore, they both abide by the rule. As for the air-conditioned wards in KTPH, substituting the non-operable windows with operable windows would be an ideal solution to benefit from Singapore’s’ weather that is qualified to naturally ventilate spaces as it has a reasonable wind speed.

In PMC, the healing environment is clearly manifested and recognised. This includes atriums and garden terraces on every floor for all users to enjoy the natural climate and a walking garden as a relief zone as well as native plants planted in gardens. As for KTPH, it includes more than 16 landscaped areas and gardens. It includes rooftop gardens, courtyards, and planter boxes outside patient rooms to bring the garden close to patients.

The Yishun pond has been involved as a natural extension. The edge of the pond has been planted by native flower species to provide a unique garden experience for garden users. These plants boost the biodiversity of the area by creating a natural habitat for native fauna. The pond is considered a safe port for an assortment of biodiversity.

Being surrounded with informal settlements and slums, 57357’s healing environment is not apparent. However, the hospital is designed towards modernity in an extreme, useless manner. As a result, they depended on including meaningless steel structures that are meant to somehow act as a shading device. Thus, in order to prevent the overheating of rooms, shading devices are necessary. Such flaw in the landscape has been found to be, nevertheless, positively rated when the questionnaire was filled in. This is due to the fact that the hospital is evaluated within the context that it is located in. In other words, the surrounding area results in perceiving the hospital in an over-rated manner. Whereas if the hospital is assessed in an objective or abstract manner, one would realise the overly poor and limited vegetation that exists, thus negating the importance of patients having a close presence to a natural and highly vegetated environment.

This research attempted to further prove the influence of nature and natural elements on patients’ conditions.

It reinforces the constant increase in research which has proven that natural elements are, in fact, fundamentally and directly linked to having positive impact and effect on the patients’ wellbeing. When taking a closer look at 57357, results have showed that some natural features, regarding patients’ psychological status, healing process and the hospital’s internal environment that are left undefined. Therefore, in order to overcome such flaws, biophilia must be integrated as much as possible in buildings, generally, and in hospitals, specifically, within both developed and developing countries in order to guarantee developed and successful results that would benefit patients.

References Huelat, B. J. 2008. The Wisdom of Biophilia-Nature in Healing Environments. Journal of Green Building, 3 (3), pp. 23—35 Miller, H. 2013. ‚nature based design: the new green‘. Available at: http://www.hermanmiller.com/content/dam/hermanmiller/documents/research_summaries/wp_Nature_Based Molthrop, E. (2011). Biophilic Design; A Review of Principle and Practice. [online]Available at: http://dujs.dartmouth.edu/wpcontent/uploads/2011/06/11s_final-37-39.pdf.

Moore, G. (1979). Architecture and human behaviour: The place of environment-behaviour studies in Architecture. pp.18 21. Available at: http://sydney.edu.au/architecture/documents/staff/garymoore/28.pdf [Accessed 19 May. 2014].

S. Ulrich, R. n.d. ‚Effect of interior design on wellness: Theory and recent scientific research‘.Journal of Healthcare interior design, pp. 97-109.

Wilson, E. O. 1984. Biophilia. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press

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Towards an Integrative Discourse on Traditional and Modern Building Techniques as Sustainable Alternative to Current Practices The Case of Residential Buildings in Egypt Author: Rasha Abodeeb Supervisor 1: Prof. Dr. Mohamed A. Salheen, Professor of Integrated Planning and Design - Ain Shams University, Egypt Supervisor 2: Prof. JosĂŠ Luis Moro, Professor of Architecture - University of Stuttgart, Germany Supervisor 3: Dr. Hend Farouh, Associate Professor of Sustainable Architecture and Urban Development - HBRC In Egypt, typical modern construction techniques have been adopted in the last decades, which had many drawbacks on energy consumption and environmental impacts. Traditional construction techniques that were used before, were environmentally and financially more efficient. This research evaluates modern and traditional building techniques in terms of environmental impacts regarding the primary energy inputs (PEI) of building materials, indoor thermal environment and financial aspects. The aim is to develop possible hybrid approaches that suit the construction market. The applicability of proposing a new technique was investigated though onsite interviews and surveys with consultants and architects. A discussion is drawn about limits and constrains of applying new techniques to the Egyptian context. Through selecting several representative residential cases of modern and traditional building techniques and materials the study explored possible potentials to bridge the gab and to converge between benefits whether in traditional or modern techniques and materials.

An evaluation is provided for the different techniques and materials through developed assessment criteria.

Keywords: Residential buildings, Intermediate approach, Embodied energy, Co2 emissions, sustainable construction

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Introduction One of the most distinctive themes of building history is the remarkable transformation from local- and traditional-based methods to an industrial method. Building components and materials are gradually turned into products instead of having an intimate relation with humans. Industrialization and modernization strongly influenced cities, whether in developed or developing countries, where the ubiquitous concrete skeleton, rebar and infill block buildings are globally witnessed (Davis, 2006).

In Egypt, rapid urbanization and population growth urged a higher demand for dwellings to accommodate inhabitants. By the second half of the 20th century, iron industry started to grow and take a considerable place. Steel and concrete had started to be used widely as new building materials; reinforced concrete has, dramatically, changed the construction techniques. Unfortunately, these current modern materials, which were provided by the industrialization movement to achieve the new needs for housing, were met at the expenses of natural resource depletion, energy consumption, climate changes and even inhabitants’ health. The current situation has urged the finding of sustainable building technologies and materials, economically, environmentally and socially. From this point, this study aimed to go through a deep investigation and analysis for traditional and modern building techniques to extract the pros and cons of the different techniques and to put down recommendations for an integrated building and sustainable solutions.

1. Exploring the Traditional and Modern Building Practices in Egypt The study explored the traditional and modern building techniques and materials to illustrate the changes of the building techniques and materials over time for urban, rural and desert areas. For rural and desert areas, earth construction was one of the main technologies and materials all over Egypt. Although different technologies and methods were developed according to each area, the most dominant building material was mud (Elkabbany, 2013). For urban areas, stone and fired bricks and the load bearing wall system were the most dominant structural systems. But, lately, according to the rapid urbanization and the massive demand for housing, and in addition to the great desire for modernization due to the socioeconomic transformation, building techniques and materials have also been transformed, in rural, desert, and urban areas, into ubiquitous concrete skeletons with infill bricks.

2. Comparative Analysis of Traditional and Modern Building Practices in Egypt The study focused on exploring three case studies that represent different techniques and materials for the traditional and modern practices. The research aimed to analyze these building practices from physical and nonphysical perspectives to identify the advantages, disadvantages and potentials of each building practice. A mud building has been selected to represent the rural and desert architecture. For urban areas, a load-bearing wall construction system has been selected, since it was a common building technique before the reinforced concrete structural systems. Lastly, the last case represents modern building techniques, in which concrete skeleton and bricks in fill are used.

According to the below comparative analysis between the different techniques, it has been revealed that both traditional and modern techniques do not provide an absolute solution according to the current needs of the residents. Therefore, it can be concluded that a country like Egypt needs to embrace other intermediate alternatives which are environmentally friendly, use less technology, are affordable for people and, most of all, are more productive than the traditional techniques (Varma, 2003). In addition, it is important to emphasize that the development of traditional building practices cannot be successful by simply copying a prototype of the traditional house (Plessis, 2002).

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Mud building Wall Bearing Structural System RC. Structure with concrete slab

Modern Technique

Traditional techniques

Case Study

Advantages

Disadvantages

Physical and Non physical

-Environmentally friendly -Low energy consumption - No Co2 emissions - Recyclable material - Thermal comfort - Low cost - Self-build -Thermal comfort -Low cost

- Regular maintenance - Stabilized materials - Water-irresistance - Cracks after dryness.

- Vertical expansion -Not enough facilities, electricity and infrastructure - Indicates low living standards.

Physical and Non physical

- Use of natural materials.

-Low energy consumption.

- Recyclable materials - Thermal comfort.

-Residents are satisfied with the indoor air quality.

-Creating job opportunities

-Wooden ceiling needs regular maintenance.

-People think that building is only 2 or 3 storey heights.

-Maintenance and replacement expenses, for wooden ceilings.

Physical and Non physical

-Able for vertical extension and high-rise buildings.

-With high land value, a high rise building is an appropriate solution to accommodate the whole family - In rural and desert areas, it represents high living standards

- Negative environmental impacts -Consuming high amount of energy.

-The 12 cm wall has low thermal storage mass.

-Cooling devices are needed.

-High costs -No monitoring system for materials prices -The only available alternative.

Table 1: Advantages and disadvantages of traditional and modern building techniques Source: Author

3. Towards an Integrative approach The concept of intermediate technology is brought up after recognizing the threat of modern technology in the different life aspects – the environmental, social and economic aspects. Schumacher believed that the practices of modern technology, after these destructive impacts, should be revisited. He questioned the modern technology that depended on the system of mass production and criticized this system which is based on sophisticated, highly capital-intensive, high energy- input dependent, and human labor-saving technology presupposes that the user is already a rich person (Schumacher, 1973).

Intermediate technology is provided in this study as a sustainable solution for residential building construction in Egypt. Egypt should develop different technologies to benefit from local knowledge, available resources, materials and different skills. Furthermore, it should utilize modern technologies in a way that minimizes its negative impacts and maximizes its benefits. In Egypt, some individual practices are dedicated to implement intermediate technologies that benefit from traditional and modern techniques and materials.

In the following steps of this study, a set of criteria were defined to evaluate these practices in order to identify the advantages, disadvantages and potentials to enhance the current practices as well as the trials of intermediate practices.

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4. Assessment Criteria for Egypt

Figure 1: Assessment criteria Source: Author

Assessment criteria were developed; they were mainly based on the sustainable construction concepts in which environmental, economic and social aspects are concerned. In order to validate the concept within Egypt’s context, a questionnaire and deep interviews were conducted; the target of each was the assessment of the degree of satisfaction of the different stakeholders, architects, consultants and residents of the current building construction. The results have showed that the cost, environment and indoor air quality were the most important aspects that should be considered in the residential buildings. With the reflection on sustainable construction concepts, the research developed the assessment criteria which included the primary energy inputs PEI (embodied energy), Co2 emissions, U-value thermal masses, cost analysis and labor intensity in which job creation is considered.

5. Empirical Work A base case study is selected for one of the self-help housing projects in Egypt – “Ebny Beitak (Build Your Own House)” which represents a sample of modern practice. In addition, two more cases are selected representing ‘intermediate’ solutions that integrate modern and traditional building techniques and materials.

The study analyzed the different building components for structural elements and building materials — the wall and slab techniques, and the life cycle phases for materials in each technique. Moreover, the quantification of the embodied energy and CO2 emissions were performed to explain the impact of each material on energy consumption and negative emissions through the life cycle. It is worth mentioning that, although every building material has its own way of production, they all get through the same life cycle process (Gong et al., 2012). Each building material needs an amount of energy to be manufactured, starting from the extraction of raw materials, then the manufacturing process, followed by transportation to construction site. The amount of

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fossil fuel utilized in all of these processes is considerable, which needed to be reduced. Otherwise, an increasing demand on energy will not stop and there would be high tendency to have an energy crisis. Thus, building materials industry is highly affected by the energy consumption. Furthermore, it influences the resource depletion and environmental impact through the pollutant emissions of CO2 and other environmentally noxious influences (Jones & Hammond, 2008).

Building materials

Embodied Energy (MJ/kg)

Co2 Emissions KgCo2/kg

Cement

5.85

0.248

Steel rebar

38.0

0.730

Red bricks

2.5

0.060

Lime

5.63

0.76

Stabilized Earth

0.7

o.o51

0.85

0.087

Lime Stone

Table 2: Embodied Energy and Co2 Emissions for Different Building Material Source: (Jones & Hammond 2008 and others)

Figure 2: Life Cycle Concept Source: Edited from literature

The analysis also included the economic aspect through choosing the most cost efficient techniques and building materials’ production for construction. Furthermore, it showed the opportunities that each technique can provide for creating jobs, which could improve the socio economic aspect. Also, the Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) is concerned with the health and the thermal comfort for the users inside the building. In the case of thermal comfort, it is influenced by different parameters. In addition, other remarkable factors affect the indoor thermal comfort such as the building envelope construction, building design and orientation. Building envelope should provide the appropriate thermal comfort for building users; consequently, it conserves energy consumed for cooling and heating. This is can be achieved through increasing the thermal resistance (R-value) of the building envelope, which, in turn, reduces the transmission load. So, in the regions with extreme climates, it is necessary to install thermal insulation to increase the time lag of heat transfer (Al-Sanea, Zedan, & Al-Hussain, 2012). Furthermore, thermal transmittance for walls (U Value) is a considerable indicator for thermal comfort since it refers to “the quantity of heat passing through a unit area of wall per unit time normally when there is a unit difference in temperature of inside & outside, So U=1/Rt” (Nassief, 2014). High thermal masses in buildings – walls and roofs perform as thermal storage elements which help to reduce variations of the interior air temperature, increase time lag and, hence, reduce peak transmission load compared to low thermal masses (Al-Sanea & Zedan, 2011).

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6. Applications on ““Ebny Beitak”” Model: A Comparison Analysis “Abny Beitak” project revealed to have a bad performance. Although there is flexibility for the design and expansions that reinforced concrete skeleton, the environmental impact, energy consumption and the cost of building materials reduced the chances for concrete skeleton to compete with these new circumstances. Consequently, this will pave the way to introduce other alternatives; the other building techniques that integrated between the traditional and modern techniques also have drawbacks. Compared to the current situation, they have much better performance regarding the sustainable construction aspects. The most pressing need for the moment is to improve the performances of these integrative techniques and to have the support of the governmental sector to be implemented in the current projects. Consequently, these techniques will gain the market’s and people’s trust to implement them on an individual scale.

Figure 3: Wall Technique #1 Concrete Skeleton System ‘Reinforced Concrete Foundation with 12 cm Red Brick Wall (Abny Beitak ) Source: Author

Figure 4: Wall Technique #2

Load Bearing Wall System ‘Stone Foundation with 38 cm Red Brick Wall’ Source: Author

Figure 6: Slab Technique 1: Concrete Skeleton System ‘Reinforced Concrete Slab’ Source: Author

Figure 5: Wall Technique #3 Load Bearing Wall System ‘Stone foundation with Rammed Earth Wall’ Source: Author

Figure 7: Slab Technique 2: Flat Vault Slab System ‘Red Bricks Flat Vaults with Concrete Beams’ Source: Author

Referring to the comparison analysis, embodied energy and Co2 emissions for wall technique #1 are much higher compared with wall technique #2 and wall technique #3. Although materials such as steel and cement consume considerable amounts of natural resources and energy, these materials became the most common used in building construction in Egypt in the last decades. For cost analysis, the calculation showed that slab technique #2 is more expensive than slab technique #1 due to the high price of the metal forms for casting the reinforced concrete beams. However, this high price could significantly be decreased if the system is applied on a larger scale. The comparison showed that the wall and slab of technique #2 would be a better alternative for the “Ebny Beitak” project in terms of providing more environmentally efficient techniques than the existing one. In addition, it would be applicable for self-help housing projects and, since this technique needs more labor, it will create more jobs. For wall, technique #3 showed the best performance of the three wall techniques.

However, it has recently been introduced in Egypt and only a few projects have used this technique because of the lack of knowledge of its structural integrity and also the limited skill labor. Furthermore, the building code does not support earth construction until now, and these factors seen as barriers that hinder the use of rammed earth for construction (Gramlich, 2013).

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Conclusion This study aimed to bridge the gap between the different building techniques used in the residential sector. The work was oriented trying to bring along the benefits of each construction technique into one model for assessing and putting down useful recommendations.

On the practical scale, some of the architects and those who work in the construction industry are aware of the potentials behind traditional building techniques and materials, as they are environmentally friendly and sustainable. Yet, the tendency to imitate the West in their buildings and even their lifestyle seems to be dominating their choices and desires. Moreover, the lack of understanding the climatic conditions, nature and cultural principals contributes in orienting the current demands. Also, some psychological factors, such as pairing mud construction with the poor, have a strong influence on the construction market.

Besides the need for improvement of the current building industry, the promotion for new practices is necessary side by side with research and development. On the awareness and educational level to the nature of our context on the first phase, in addition to learning how to build on their own, and how to appreciate the traditional buildings as well as the privileges that are given by the new technologies and modern construction.

On the state and decision making entities level, more flexible regulations should be promoted. The strict building regulations and bureaucratic process that limits the production of innovative ideas need to be reconsidered. The government should promote and give privileges and aid to the factories that experiment and produce new building materials and develop new techniques. Alongside and in a very short period, we can witness a leap in the construction industry in Egypt.

References Al-Sanea, S. a., & Zedan, M. F. (2011). Improving thermal performance of building walls by optimizing insulation layer distribution and thickness for same thermal mass. Applied Energy, 88(9), 3113–3124. doi:10.1016/j.apenergy.2011.02.036 Al-Sanea, S. a., Zedan, M. F., & Al-Hussain, S. N. (2012). Effect of thermal mass on performance of insulated building walls and the concept of energy savings potential. Applied Energy, 89(1), 430–442. doi:10.1016/j.apenergy.2011.08.009 Davis, H. (2006). The Culture of Building. New York Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Elkabbany, M. F. (2013). Alternative Building Materials and Components for Affordable Housing in Egypt Towards Improved Competitiveness of Modern Earth Construction.

Gong, X., Nie, Z., Wang, Z., Cui, S., Gao, F., & Zuo, T. (2012). Life Cycle Energy Consumption and Carbon Dioxide Emission of Residential Building Designs in Beijing. Journal of Industrial Ecology, 16(4), 576–587. doi:10.1111/j.15309290.2011.00415.x Gramlich, A. N. (2013). A CONCISE HISTORY OF THE USE OF THE RAMMED EARTH BUILDING TECHNIQUE INCLUDING INFORMATION ON METHODS OF PRESERVATION , REPAIR , AND MAINTENANCE by Presented to the Interdisciplinary Studies Program : Historic Preservation and the Graduate School of the Un, (March).

Jones, C. I., & Hammond, G. P. (2008). Embodied energy and carbon in construction materials. Proceedings of the ICE Energy, 161(2), 87–98. doi:10.1680/ener.2008.161.2.87 Nassief, M. M. (2014). Evaluation of electricity consumption of a residential flat in Egypt, 3(2), 37–44. doi:10.11648/j. epes.20140302.14 Plessis, C. du. (2002). Agenda 21 for Sustainable Construction in Developing Countries (WSSD editi.). South Africa: the CSIR Building and Construction Technology P O Box 395, Pretoria, 0001. Retrieved from http://www.cidb.org.za/documents/kc/external_publications/ext_pubs_a21_sustainable_construction.pdf Schumacher, E. F. (1973). Small is beautiful. Nature methods (Vol. 9, pp. 242–3). doi:10.1038/nmeth.1895 Varma, R. (2003). E.F. Schumacher: Changing the Paradigm of Bigger Is Better. Bulletin of Science, Technology and Society, 23(2), 114–124. doi:10.1177/0270467603251313

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The Role of the Building Envelope in Improving the Indoor Thermal comfort of Residential Building Designs in Amman as Representative of Semi-Arid Climate Author: Abdalrahman H. Alshorafa Supervisor 1: Prof. Dr. Mohamed A. Salheen, Professor of Integrated Planning and Design - Ain Shams University, Egypt Supervisor 2: Prof. JosÊ Luis Moro, Professor of Architecture - University of Stuttgart, Germany Supervisor 3: Prof. Ingo Helmedag, DAAD Visiting Professor for Architecture This paper will, critically, assess the sense of thermal comfort for residents inside contemporary residential apartments in Amman city, as a representative of the semi-arid climate. Moreover, it will try to investigate the role of building envelopes in achieving better thermal environments. The paper will, firstly, provide a theoretical background about assessing indoor thermal comfort using PMV index and the role of the building envelope to achieve it. Secondly, it will provide empirical studies based on computer simulation and assessment software products using DesignBuilder 4.1.0 in an attempt to improve the current situation. Results showed that, not only reducing the U-value of the fabric can ensure comfort, but can also make changes in building techniques and additional components for the openings can also play a role in achieving better indoor thermal sensation along one year’s time.

Keywords: Indoor environment, thermal comfort, building envelope, residential buildings in Amman - Jordan, computer simulation

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Introduction As buildings are made to accommodate and shelter human beings, concerns of providing an adequate indoor environment must be taken into consideration during the design phase. Hence, “comfort” is usually the term used to assess the adequacy of the indoor environment.

Thermal comfort, considered by Krzaczek & Tejchman n.d. as one of the four aspects involved into indoor environmental assessment, is defined as “the state of mind, which expresses satisfaction with the thermal environment” (Yao, Li, & Liu, 2009). From that definition, one can see that thermal comfort is a very interdisciplinary field of study, as it involves many aspects of various scientific fields. From the definition, one can see that various factors are influencing the thermal comfort zone. However, Macpherson identified six factors that affect thermal sensation (Gallo, Sala, & Sayigh, 1998): air temperature (dry bulb temperature); mean radiant temperature; relative humidity, and air velocity (ventilation). The second is personal factors (activity, clothing, adaptation, expectation and exposure time).

However, indoor thermal environment is, primarily, influenced by physical, external climatological parameters and highly variable internal loads. Hence, achieving comfort inside a building starts with knowing the surrounding climate in question, and the strategies to control such climate, with respect to the knowledge of human capacity to adapt to the thermal equilibrium, physiological, psychological and behavioural changes.

The early efforts, done by Houghten and Yaglou (1923) in the area of indoor thermal comfort (ITC), were purely empirical, trying to find a common index for the thermal sensation of the occupants, but perhaps the most commonly cited experiments on the human perception of thermal comfort have been performed by Fanger (1982) (Ye, Yang, Chen, & Li, 2003).

It can be noticed from the previously mentioned parameters that the shield is the ‘environmental envelope’ of the building where the heat exchange is conducted. However, the construction material of shield/envelope determines its thermophysical properties and controls the rate of heat exchange and provides one of the aspects of thermal comfort within any building. Investigating construction material properties, and their thermal performance, is an essential knowledge to understand the process of heat transfer within building components.

1. Assessing Indoor Thermal Comfort Yılmaz (2007) considered the thermo-physical properties of the building envelope the most important parameter affecting indoor thermal comfort and energy conservation in the building scale. However, the fundamental role of an envelope is to isolate and control the heat transfer process to inner spaces from outer conditions.

On the other hand, insulation layers cannot play this role alone. Childs (1983) argued that not only does the outer envelope have the function to control and store energy, but, when there are changes in the interior conditions of a building, heat can also flow inside and be stored in the building envelope or, interior partitions or any other mass in contact with the interior air space which is, scientifically, called the “thermal storage capacity of the building”. Under certain circumstances, this energy can later be recovered by the interior air space. De Saulles (2009). The dynamic thermal behaviour of a multi-layer external wall is influenced by heat resistance, heat capacity and the thickness of each layer of the fabric. However, the high heat capacity of the opaque envelope component provides a high time lag for the transmission of the outside temperature to the internal area (Zhou, Zhang, Lin, & Li, 2008).

Thermal mass is not a substitute for insulation (or vice versa). A /; a combination of the two is needed for effective passive design. Hence, this research will investigate the potentials in the three basic, most exposed components to the exterior environment, namely, the external walls, roof and windows of a building. The process takes place by manipulating the insulation layers first, then trying to optimise the thermal mass in the building before considering the source of heat gain and its impact on the indoor comfort.

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Figure 1: 7-Point Thermal Sensation Scale Source: (Federspiel et al., 2003)

Comfort index-based control has become the tendency of the development of indoor thermal comfort (ITC) conditions. The lack of definable correlation between thermal sensation and thermal preference question the underlying assumptions of the thermal sensation/comfort models. The Predicted Mean Vote (PMV) is an empirical index that has been developed based, physiologically, on a steady state model of thermal exchanges between the human body and the environment. This model was developed by Fanger, and has been used worldwide to predict and assess (ITC) in buildings. This model predicts the average subjective thermal sensation based on six variables that affect the human heat balance model. (Federspiel, Martin, & Yan, 2003). Based on that, PMV predicts the mean value of the votes on a 7-point thermal sensation scale as shown below, and will be used in the paper to evaluate the results of thermal sensation.

Case Study Analysis As a representative for the semi-arid climate, the Jordanian capital – Amman city – was chosen as the case study of this research. More specifically, this research chose the climatic station of the “University of Jordan as a specific area of study, for its modest geographical characteristics. Also, this research chose two critical time periods – January and February as winter seasons and August and September as summer seasons for running the simulation and evaluation.

Statistics showed that “high standard apartment” is the most typically spread residential buildings in Amman (which accumulate around 72% of the real estate market). These apartments are located in >2-storey-heigh buildings and have an average of 140 m2, and mostly, one floor accommodates two facing apartments.

Skeleton structure is the dominant structural system in contemporary residential buildings in Amman. However, cement is the dominant building material, as concrete is used for structural and partitioning elements, and mortar is used for binding and interior plastering. However hybrid constructions are usually used in the exterior walls, but the white Jordanian limestone is widely used as exterior cladding material and formulates the architectural identity of the city. However, layers of the current typical building envelope components are shown in Figure 2.

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U-value

U-value

(with bridging)

(with bridging)

1.036 (W/m .k) 2

2.150 (W/m .k) 2

U-value 5.778 (W/m .k) 2

Figure 2: Prevailing construction elements in Amman. exterior walls, finishing roofs, windows from left to right.

Source: (kobaa office, 2014)

In a previous study, the Royal Scientific Society in Amman published a report about conscious architectural design, and showed simulated results for a typical high standard apartment. Hence, as a validation for the DesignBuilder simulation tool, the case study from the Royal Scientific Society was modelled and simulated, and results corresponded to the published simulated results.

Figure 3: The representative case study showing the deliberated spaces and modeled urban context.

Source: (Qub’a, 2014; Author)

In order to assess the current situation of the contemporary constructions, a representative under-construction residential building was chosen to evaluate the current situation and to apply the improvement scenarios.

More specifically, two critical mirrored rooms in the upper floor, shown in Figure 3, were chosen as deliberated spaces, representing the most critical orientations.

The case study was modelled using DesignBuilder software, and sat in an urbanized context following the national Jordanian building code. Additionally, the model respected the domestic users’ pattern in free-running buildings and followed the typical cultural model in Jordan in terms of family size, user’s patterns, clothing

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and domestic energy usage.

After running the simulation for the two deliberated spaces, PMV results are shown in Table 1 below. General remarks can be noted – depending on PMV index, results showed -1.40, which means that occupants in both rooms will feel “cool”. However, PMV values of 0.94 are still acceptable too, which means that occupants in both rooms will feel “slightly warm”, although the software considered it as a discomfort sense and accumulated it in the number of discomfort hours.

Deliberated space 1

Deliberated space 2

Summer season

0.94

1.07

Winter season

-1.40

-1.33

North-east direction

(Aug. – Sep.) (Jan. – Feb.)

South-east direction

Table 1: PMV index values for indoor thermal sensation in the current constructions.

Source: Author

2. Improvement scenarios Three different scenarios, shown in Table 2, for each of the study parameters (external walls, roofs and window size) were proposed. These scenarios were, initially, proposed by the JGBC, and developed when needed to adapt with the research and case specifications. Scenarios of exterior walls and roofs – in this phase – are targeting the insulation layers, in particular, to investigate its impact on thermal sensation. By overcoming faulty installation, all insulation layers were considered 0% thermally bridged.

As a general framework – fixing two parameters and manipulating the third – simulation was being run for each case to find results of PMV thermal comfort index. Afterwards, a 3D matrix was filled with simulation results. This accumulated 27 results per room, per season, and a total of 108 results.

External walls scenarios

Roofing scenarios

U-value (W/m2.k)

Sec.

W1

1.652

W2

W3

Sce.

Section

Glazing

U-value (W/m2.k)

Sce.

%

R1

1.289

G1

15

0.571

R2

0.62

G2

25

0.39

R3

0.34

G3

40

Section

U-value (W/m2.k)

3.09

Table 2: Improvement scenarios for the first phase.

Source: Author

General remarks can be drawn from results shown in Figures 4 and 5: The current prevailing domestic construction techniques in Amman have very heavy weight materials. The combination of layers (for both exterior walls and roofs) accumulate high thermal storage mass of the build-

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ing. Hence, the risk of overheating can be more acute (as presented in all the previously simulated), since the balance of heat flows is much finer and only a small excess of heat gained over loss can cause overheating.

Therefore, the decrement factor and delay are particularly important to be reduced.

By increasing the thermal storage of the fabric and reducing the U-value consequently, more heat can be stored inside the fabric. Though this is desired in wintertime, it is still problematic for summertime.

Increasing the area of glazing caused an increase of indoor operative temperatures (and PMV values consequently); as a 10% increase in glazing causes around 0.15 PMV value increase in summertime and 0.09 in wintertime.

The impact of increasing the insulation layer within the fabric is not the only factor influencing the indoor thermal sensation, but also the solar gains from openings (as obvious in south-oriented space) play a major role in increasing the operative temperatures.

Figure 4: Simulated PMV results of deliberated space 1 (NE) with different W/W ratios Source: Author

Figure 5: Simulated PMV results of deliberated space 2 (SE) with different W/W ratios Source: Author

Further work was done trying to investigate the impact of applying lighter thermal mass of the envelope’s components. However, the newly proposed construction respected the prevailing aesthetic design and corresponded to local demand to reduce construction costs, as well as assuming assumed new fixing techniques.

The new lighter fabric was modelled and PMV value results of the proposed advanced fabric were compared to the scenario (W2-R2-15%) which is the closest to its U-values, and proposed summer time as a critical season.

Results showed remarkable improvement of 0.07 PMV for northern space and 0.1 PMV for the southern space.

Still, in further research, other previously proposed models can be compared for investigating the full impact.

Another improvement scenario was modelled to applying a shading system to the newly proposed scenario.

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Results showed remarkable improvement of 0.2 PMV, especially in the south-facing space. After applying the shading system, values meet a quite satisfying point, and are almost equal to the values in wintertime. They also reduce heat sense fluctuation to reach 1.5 instead of 2.1 before applying the shadings.

Conclusion As it can be concluded from the results of the theoretical and field case studies, the heat transfer coefficient of the building envelope is not only the factor influencing the indoor thermal comfort. The thermal storage capacity of the fabric is also a major factor influencing and controlling the heat transmission. These two factors can be controlled by the main components of the building envelope, as results have been proven.

Finally, it is possible to say that, in the semi-arid climate region, the thermal performance of buildings should be evaluated by a dynamic model of heat transfer calculations during the design stage. Additionally, it should be taken into account the heat capacity of the building envelope as the function of its thermal mass to provide heating and cooling energy conservation in buildings in this region.

References De Saulles, T. (2009). Thermal Mass Explained. wookware.org. Camberley.

Federspiel, C., Martin, R., & Yan, H. (2003). Thermal comfort models and complaint frequencies. Indoor Environmental Quality.

Gallo, C., Sala, M., & Sayigh, A. A. M. (1998). Architecture: comfort and energy (first edit., p. 241). Elsevier Ltd. Krzaczek, M., & Tejchman, J. (n.d.). Indoor Air Quality and Thermal Comfort in Naturally Ventilated Low-Energy Residential Houses. Cdn.intechopen.com.

Yao, R., Li, B., & Liu, J. (2009). A theoretical adaptive model of thermal comfort – Adaptive Predicted Mean Vote (aPMV).

Building and Environment, 44(10), 2089–2096. doi:10.1016/j.buildenv.2009.02.014 Ye, G., Yang, C., Chen, Y., & Li, Y. (2003). A new approach for measuring predicted mean vote (PMV) and standard effective temperature (SET∗). Building and Environment, 38, 33–44.

Yılmaz, Z. (2007). Evaluation of energy efficient design strategies for different climatic zones: Comparison of thermal performance of buildings in temperate-humid and hot-dry climate. Energy and Buildings, 39(3), 306–316. doi:10.1016/j. enbuild.2006.08.004 Zhou, J., Zhang, G., Lin, Y., & Li, Y. (2008). Coupling of thermal mass and natural ventilation in buildings. Energy and Buildings, 40(6), 979–986. doi:10.1016/j.enbuild.2007.08.001

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Source: Author

Climatic Sensitive Landscape Design Enhancing the Microclimate of Public Schools’ Courtyards in Egypt Author: Wesam El-Bardisy Supervisor 1: Prof. Dr. Germin Elgohary, Professor of Architecture and Landscape Design - Ain Shams University, Egypt Supervisor 2: Prof. Antje Stokman, Professor of Landscape Planning and Ecology - University of Stuttgart, Germany Supervisor 3: Dr. Mohamed Fahmy, Senior Lecturer of Passive Architecture & Urban Built Environment - MTC, Cairo Supervisor 4: Dr. Bernd Eisenberg, Institute of Landscape Planning and Ecology – University of Stuttgart, Germany The climatic quality of the space in Egypt has, recently, received attention from climatologists and urban designers. A limited number of researches incorporate the context of schools using simulation programs in Egypt. Previously, pieces of research have discussed the indoor quality of classrooms and ended with a set of recommendations in outdoor spaces for a better educational quality. This paper will investigate and assess the climatic quality of El-Sherouk primary school courtyard using ENVI-met simulation software; and conclude with a tailored definition of Climatic Sensitive Landscape Design (CSLD) in the courtyards of public schools. The results of the ENVI-met simulation reveals that trees among other landscape elements, significantly, attenuate the climatic conditions of the courtyard which resulted in better Predicted Mean Vote (PMV) records. The trees canopy is the major component that attenuates solar radiation, controls wind pattern, and reduces the terrestrial radiations. The paper also proposes methods to enhance the design guidelines of the General Authority Educational Buildings (GAEB) for courtyards and proposes a CSLD toolbox, as well.

Keywords: Public schools, Climatic Sensitive Landscape Design, ENVI-met software, trees, PMV, Courtyards, GAEB.

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The Context of Egypt Although the landscape dimension in Egypt is nearly absent due to the lack of awareness among planners and practitioners with the importance of landscape design (ElMasry 2014), nowadays, Egypt is witnessing a boom in the climatic research and landscape design.

Some research papers have incorporated empirical research beside the field survey with the aid of the theoretical research. This research includes: a) landscape design requirements to create thermally comfortable spaces (Mahmoud 2011b); b) landscape design guideline matrix in different climatic regions in Egypt (Mahmoud 2011a); c) investigation of the effect of plantation design in the outdoor thermal comfort via ENVI-met software (Kenawy et al. 2010); d) methods for calculating the trees canopy conceptual parameters as an input for the ENVI-met software in mid latitude region (Fahmy et al. 2010a) and many others. Thus, it is essential to revive the importance of the landscape elements, especially students and children in schools.

Context of Schools Aiming to explore the courtyard’s climatic quality in schools, a private and public schools have been randomly selected in new cities. The public schools founded by General Authority of Educational Building (GAEB1), have, apparently, lacked the climatic landscape dimension despite the fact that these schools accept more than 87% of the children in Egypt. GAEB, with the Institute of Environmental Studies and Research, have formulated a set of design guidelines to assure the provision of adequate educational environments and to achieve comfortable thermal and acoustical performances inside school buildings. These guidelines have covered the spatial and conceptual design of the schools’ activities, recommendations for landscape design of outdoor spaces, and the criteria for selecting the school’s location (GAEB 1990).

GAEB has performed an assessment survey on a random sample of 25 schools in Cairo, Giza, and Qalyoubeya.

This survey has included a field survey and questionnaire with the aim to enhance the design guidelines through assessing the status quo of both schools. Results have revealed a gap between the guidelines and the status quo.

Figure 1: The gap between the design guidelines developed by GAEB and the implementation in some schools.

Source : Author

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The climatic dimension has been absent and most of the students have shed light on the thermal discomfort.

This is because of, firstly, the absence of the plantation patterns and, secondly, because the linear prototype – the common constructed prototype – does not provide the required shade. Thus, the majority of the courtyards and playgrounds have lacked the shading aspects which do not fulfil GAEBs’ design guideline, shown in figure 1 (GAEB 1990).

Microclimate and its effects (Oke 1987) has illustrated the horizontal urban climatic scales in accordance with the climatic interactions within the urban boundary layer and has elaborated that the microclimatic scale falls beyond the Urban Canopy Layer with a height up to 1000m. The microclimate of outdoor spaces is complex on the variable, temporal and spatial levels when compared with indoor spaces. Thus, it is hard to maintain the human thermal comfort.

(Nikolopoulou et al. 2001; Shashua-Bar et al. 2011).

1. Thermal comfort (Toudert 2005), in her thesis, has highlighted Fanger’s thermal comfort definition which is the energy gained or lost from the human body and, to maintain comfort, the body should reach equilibrium in the heat flow from and to it. The human body is affected by environmental factors and building environments such as building morphology, topography, vegetation, water, surface albedos. This is beside other personal and behavioural factors such as the clothing CLO and activity factors MET(Gut & Ackerknecht 1993; Tsuyoshi 2009; Erell et al. 2011). Researchers have attempted to develop various indices on the human sensation for thermal comfort.

These indicies are a lot but nearly the majority, to a large extent, combines the same climatic factors (Toudert 2005).

Predicted Mean Vote (PMV) is one of the most recognised indices that evaluates the thermal sensation of space users. The index is based on the thermoregulation and the heat balance theories developed by Fanger 1972.

Originally, PMV is designed for indoor use, yet, PMV for outdoor conditions has been developed by (Jendritzky & Nubler 1981), known as the Klima-Micheal-Model. The Klima-Micheal-Model is an extension of the PMV index, a rational index that predicts the thermal sensation of the humans through a point scale that ranges from -4 to 4. This index calculates the comfort level of the students when it combines the climatic variables as well as the personal variable (Jendritzky & Nubler 1981).

2. Landscape Design Various landscape strategies enhance the microclimate of the courtyard (Attia 2006) although not all of them are applicable in the context of the schools and, especially, in the case of limited funding (Bansbach et al. 2012).

Attia 2006, has highlighted, in his research paper, the historical principals of using landscape elements which include plantations, water, and pavements. Afterwards, (Mahmoud 2011) has developed a bioclimatic chart for the Cairo and delta regions. This chart is a matrix between the landscape design strategies and the external environmental parameters that influence the human comfort in summer and winter time.

These strategies include sun shading, direct evaporative cooling, natural ventilation, heat gain, humidification, conventional heating, and high inertia (Mahmoud 2011). Trees, among other plantation elements significantly ameliorate the microclimate. The tree’s canopy is the major component that attenuates the solar radiation, controls wind speed, reduces the solar heat gain on surfaces, and increases the latent heat cooling by evapotranspiration (Kotzen 2003). Thus, the aim of the research is to investigate the climatic quality of public school’s courtyards using simulation software and to study the effect of the different landscape design possibilities on the students’ comfort levels in courtyards. Also, it aims to produce a set of recommendations for CSLD in Public Schools.

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Figure 2: Methodology of work for simulation Source: Author

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Methods and Tools Exploring the landscape patterns of public schools as well as reviewing the GAEB guidelines and investigating the landscape patterns of the schools have aided the selection of the case study of El-Sherouk Primary School2.

Additionally, to fulfil the focus and the aim of the study, ENVI-met simulation software is used.

“ENVI-met is a three-dimensional microclimate model designed to simulate the surface-plant-air interactions in urban environment with a typical resolution of 0.5 to 10 m in space and 10 sec in time. Typical areas of application are UrbanClimatology, Architecture, Building Design or Environmental Planning.” (Bruse 2002, avaliable at http://www.envi-met.com/) ENVI-met, among other programs, perfectly understands plantations. This returns to the detailed inputs that ENVI-met requires such as the type of the plant, the conceptual canopy parameter, stomata resistance and the roots area (Bruse 2002). Moreover, ENVI-met combines all the climatic factors such as wind, humidity, temperature, and mean radiant temperature affecting the PMV thermal index (Lenzholzer 2010).

Initially, ENVI-met has been used with the aid of field observations and climatic analysis to access the comfort level of the students within the courtyard after validating the simulation through comparing the user’s microclimatic map with the recorded PMV index, the comfort indicator available in ENVI-met software. ENVI-met was directly used to run iterative processes of tests after setting the boundary conditions for the landscape elements and the simulation as well as clustering the possible elements and translating those patterns for simulation as shown in Figure 2.

Discussion and Results The landscape patterns in courtyards are nearly absent due to the limited available budget set for public schools. Thus, GAEB has set priorities for constructing schools, firstly schools and afterwards the courtyards as a result, the CSLD for the courtyards is absent in the majority of public schools.

Based on the simulation patterns results, shown in Figure 3, it is concluded that: •

Trees affect the courtyard’s microclimate through its shading effect and modify the wind’s flow pattern through their canopy. This dramatically decreases PMV’s records. On the contrary, the effect of trees on temperature and humidity is barely observed due to the small area of the courtyard.

•

The microclimatic modification range of the trees is influenced by a) the environmental climatic conditions (i.e. the prevailing wind and its speed and the solar radiation), b) the setting of the trees that include its clustering and its spatial location, and c) The terrestrial radiation of the surrounding surfaces, particularly pavements.

•

This is in addition to the trees characteristics that include: the geometry of the trees; canopy silhouette and; the type of the trees being confiner or deciduous and the genetic factors of the trees that include the growth rate within the time, where the pre-mature trees do not fulfil the required effects.

•

Grass and shrubs negligibly modify the microclimate in comparison with trees. At the same time, light structure and tensile elements modify the microclimate on a higher level than grass and shrubs, and it is not applicable to compare light structure elements with trees via ENVI-met software due to its limitations in modelling.

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Figure 3: Right: Change in the PMV records at the receptor points; Left: Simulation results of ENVI-met software for trees linear arrangement pattern Source: Author

Conclusion Based on the literature, the plantation of trees, in particular, among other landscape elements, enhances the climatic quality of the space through: the attenuation of solar radiation; controlling wind speed; reducing the solar heat gain on surfaces and increasing the latent cooling by evapotranspiration. These climatic effects strongly enhance the comfort level of students within the courtyard.

The ENVI-met program has proven that it is a very good tool to use in the designing process either for the current/existing situation or futuristic situation in the case of El-Sherouk Primary School, especially within the time constrains. This is after validating the simulation outcomes with the microclimatic mental map of the space users, although field measurements are recommended for more factual simulation outcomes. Also, due to the microclimatic complexity in outdoor spaces, especially with researchers with no background in the field of climatology and landscape practice, it is highly recommended to use in ENVI-met as a tool to assist the interpretation of the microclimatic effects on plantations, ground covers, and other surrounding surfaces.

After studying the context of the public schools, a tailored definition of CSLD may adequately word in the case of a limited budget. This definition incorporates: a) the design dimension such as landscape element, setting, spatial location of the elements, clustering types of the elements, or terrestrial radiation of the surrounding materials; b) the sustaining dimension such as site and soil improvement, water supply, and participation and responsibility and c) the benefits dimension for the required elements in the case of limited budget or lack of money.

Recommendations Some recommendations are proposed for the GAEB organisation to involve the CSLD within the courtyards, even when there is no available budget. These recommendations, firstly, start from the design phase, passing through the implementation phase, and end on how to sustain these implementation. Within the design phase of the courtyard, the CSLD toolbox provides guidance to landscape architects while designing the courtyard.

The toolbox includes recommendations for designing and sustaining the existing and new courtyards, as well.

It also alerts young researchers on how to use ENVI-met in testing the different landscape possibilities.

Endnotes 1. GAEB: The General Authority of Educational Building (GAEB) is responsible for designing, maintaining, and evaluating governmental buildings including post offices, schools, and emergency centre all over Egypt (MAD 2014).

2. El-Sherouk Primary School: It is located in El-Sherouk satellite city (30°8’41”N 31°37’48”E, at an attitude that ranges from 181 to 189 m). The prevailing wind ranges from the northern direction, where the courtyard, directly, receives the

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adequate wind pattern. At the same time, the courtyard is totally exposed to direct sun radiation throughout the day and nearly no adequate landscape patterns exist.

References Attia, S., 2006. The role of landscape design in improving the microclimate in traditional courtyard-buildings in hot arid climates. In Passive and low Energy Architecture. Geneva,Switzerland, pp. 6–8. Available at: www.unige.ch.

Bansbach, J. et al., 2012. A Practical Guide to Planning , Constructing , and Using School Courtyards, Bruse, M., 2002. ENVI-met. Available at: http://www.envi-met.com/ [Accessed January 29, 2014].

ElMasry, L.E., 2014. Landscape Architecture and The Planting Design of Al-Azhar Park [AR] First., Cairo, Egypt: ElSherouk International Library.

Erell, E., Pearlmutter, D. & Williamson, T., 2011. Urban Microclimate:Designing Spaces between Buildings, London: Routledge.

GAEB, 1990, Design guidelines for designing Primary schools in Greater Cairo [AR] Gut, P. & Ackerknecht, D., 1993. Climate responsive Building 1 by Swiss., SKAT. Kotzen, B., 2003. An investigation of shade under six different tree species of the Negev desert towards their potential use for enhancing micro-climatic conditions in landscape architectural development. Journal of Arid Environments, 55(2), pp.231–274. Available at: http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0140196303000302 [Accessed April 10, 2014].

Lenzholzer, S., 2010. Designing Atmospheres. Wageningen University. Available at: http://edepot.wur.nl/139053.

MAD, 2014, General Authority of Educational Buildings [AR] , pp.2–3. Available at: http://www.giza.gov.eg/Companies/ Buildings/default.aspx [Accessed March 1, 2014].

Mahmoud, A.H., 2011. An analysis of bioclimatic zones and implications for design of outdoor built environments in Egypt. Building and Environment, 46(3), pp.605–620. Available at: http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/ S0360132310002775 [Accessed July 20, 2014].

Nikolopoulou, M., Baker, N. & Steemers, K., 2001. Thermal comfort in outdoor urban spaces: understanding the human parameter. Solar Energy, 70(3), pp.227–235. Available at: http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/ S0038092X00000931.

Oke, T.., 1987. Boundry Layer Climates Second Edi., Taylor & Francis e-Library.

Shashua-Bar, L., Pearlmutter, D. & Erell, E., 2011. The influence of trees and grass on outdoor thermal comfort in a hot-arid environment. International Journal of Climatology, 31(10), pp.1498–1506. Available at: http://doi.wiley.com/10.1002/ joc.2177 [Accessed January 9, 2014].

Toudert, F.A., 2005. Dependence of Outdoor Thermal Comfort on Street Design in Hot and Dry Climate. Universitat Freiburg.

Tsuyoshi, H., 2009. Thermal Comfort in Outdoor Environment. , pp.43–47.

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Politics and Urbanism

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The Emergence of Habitat in Zaatari Camp Between Humanitarian and Socio-Cultural Order Author: Ayham Dalal Supervisor 1: Prof. Dr. Mohamed A. Salheen, Professor of Integrated Planning and Design - Ain Shams University, Egypt Supervisor 2: Vertr. Prof. Dr. Nina Gribat, Interim Professor of Int’l Urbanism - University of Stuttgart, Germany Supervisor 3: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Yehya Mohamed Serag, Associate Professor of Urban and Regional Planning -Ain Shams University, Egypt Camps are considered to be temporal stations in which refugees are supplied with basic services in order to survive. However, with the emergence of the city inside the camps, they were suddenly perceived as long-term developments. Coping with this transition, the UN Agencies started developing new strategies in order to achieve development, though without putting sufficient efforts to understand how and why refugee camps urbanise in the first place. This was observed in the Zaatari camp as the planning policies and strategies were frequently challenged by the refugees’ daily activities, leading them to fail in achieving their purpose. Therefore, in addition to focusing on habitat, this paper examines the transition from the camp to the city. It illustrates under which policies and strategies the Zaatari camp grew and was planned, and then, how refugees reacted to this process and why. The transformation from shelter units and open spaces to habitat and social spaces was a result of an on-going process, marked by a clear tension between a humanitarian ‘far’ order and a sociocultural ‘near’ order. The findings of this paper are partial results of an intensive field research which was carried out in the Zaatari camp between February and April 2014 in order to map its urbanisation process.

Keywords: refugee camps, habitat, humanitarian, social space, Medina, socio-culture, Islam

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Introduction The Syrian crisis has emerged into what is considered now to be one of the largest exodus in our recent history (UN, 2014a). The demographic pressure of more than three million refugees dispersed in the region has become a burden on the shoulders of the hosting countries’ camps (ibid).1 While the establishment of camps appealed as a solution for releasing the pressure on local resources, services and infrastructure, they are problematic in terms of their relation to the hosting state and the humanitarian mandate. The exclusion and temporality of refugee camps have introduced them as a problematic topic for urban planning.

With the growth of the Zaatari camp to become the second biggest refugee camp in the world, this paper examines the planning policies and strategies implemented in the camp in order to accommodate the increasing numbers of refugees. Drawing on the Lefebvrian (1996) distinction between ‘the city’ and ‘the urban’, it looks into dynamics and tensions accompanying and leading to the emergence of urbanity in the camp yet focusing on habitat and its social spaces.2 The findings of this paper are the results of an intensive field research carried out in the Zaatari camp between February and April 2014. Through this research, an analyses and comparison process was held between the published documents, surveys and reports about the Zaatari camp, and the personal observations and in-depth interviews with UNHCR’s planning unit and the Syrian refugees.

1. Planned and Unplanned: A Humanitarian ‘Far’ Order Located 10 kilometres away from the closest urban centre is Al-Mafraq city, a ‘closed camp’ which has been constructed.3 The Zaatari camp was planned to host 10,000 Syrian refugees (UN, 2014b).3 However, the increasing influx expanded the camp to grow from the size of a farm (30 hectares in September 2012) to the size of a city (530 hectares in March 2013) where more than 350,000 registered refugees were assisted (UNHCR, 2014a).4 In July 2012, the camp was under the responsibility of a Jordanian NGO.5 Refugees were spontaneously settling within the boundaries of the humanitarian space, influenced by built structures: one asphalted street cutting through the camp; main facilities constructed in juxtaposition to each other facing the same street, and a communal infrastructure being punctured between refugees’ tents.6 Under these settings, the allocation of refugees produced a distinctive urban footprint known as the old camp which grew up to make around 40% of the current camp’s area. However, the unplanned, old camp was challenging for humanitarians as it was congested, dense and not able to meet humanitarian standards. Therefore, the decision to extend and plan a new camp was taken with the proliferating numbers of refugees arriving to the camp every day.

Satellite images show that the work in the new camp started in November 2012 though UNHCR became in charge of the camp in March 2013. The analysis of the Agency’s program in the Zaatari camp shows less attention towards the urban and spatial settings which appeared in the resulted outcome (Dalal, 2014).7 The new camp is a group of 7 rectangular sub-camps (around 75x50 meters) defined by the road network extended from the old camp. Each district embedded a grid of 12 residential blocks supplied with infrastructure and services.

The planning of these blocks was as follows: a residential zone of 12x7 caravans; a drinking water tank; four communal latrines; three communal kitchens shared by two blocks and a multi-activity space on the side, all following the same grid (see fig.1).

Despite the differences in spatial settings, the whole camp was following the same humanitarian standardised policies. For instance, UNHCR supported each refugee family of less than 6 members with only one shelter unit. These were either a tent of 23 m2 or a caravan of 16 m2 (REACH, 2013).8 The one room space is used for sleeping and living, whereas the communal infrastructures (kitchens, latrines and water tanks) provide the other needed services. Within this arrangement, refugees are supplied with two types of space: covered and open, in which the planning of the whole camp is based.9 The standardisation of living, separation of functions

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and the commonality of services provided an easy and clear strategies for the camp to be rapidly constructed though apparently, not for refugees to live.

Figure 1: A Planned Block Source : Dalal, 2014

2. Counter Planning: A Socio-Cultural ‘Near’ Order The implemented strategies and policies were rather embarrassing as they were implicitly challenging the culture, values and traditions of refugees. One of the main aspects was the mixture of gender in relation to space. Starting from the most private space, the shelter unit, many refugees reported their sense of humiliation and discomfort regarding the housing policy, as one explained: “Imagine that because we all have to live in this room, my daughter has to change her clothes in front of her brother! What a shame! We never did that in Syria”. This becomes even more problematic within extended family structures which are very common in the Zaatari camp.10 The use of communal infrastructure was not favoured by refugees, as well. A recent survey stated that 33% of the respondents had safety concerns regarding the use of the communal latrines during the day and 48% during the night (ACTED, JEN, OXFAM, & UNICEF, 2013). Lack of hygiene, privacy, and the long travels needed to reach them at night were some of the reasons behind these concerns. However, refugees considered it disrespectful for women and elders to use such communal facilities. One refugee elaborated: “My mom is an old woman. She has done an operation for her kidney …and she needs to use the toilet every hour …. Do you think I can carry her whenever she needs? I’m not there all the time”. The same situation applies for kids, as one refugee explained: “We cannot keep going back and forth to the toilet every time we need it …. I have a little child, you see …” This explains why communal latrines were constantly vandalised, as they were not collectively approved by the refugees for which they were planned and constructed. Communal kitchens and water tanks were also vandalised, though to a lesser extent.

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3. The Emergence of Habitat Socio-culture acted as a driving force, encouraging refugees to find appropriate solutions for living and shelter through the limited resources made available by the humanitarians in the camp. The expansion beyond the standardised housing unit started first when tents were substituted with caravans. Considering that caravans are solid and stable, they acted as a core on which tents were hanged on the sides, creating additional spaces.

The resulting spaces were flexible and varied in their level of privacy according to their function. However, while this might have partially released the societal tension, the real turning point was the acquisition of more than one caravan.11 Since they function as isolated and movable rooms, caravans were put in front of each other, connected with a cement floor and shaded by curtains, bags or tents to create a private inner court.

Communal facilities like kitchens, toilets and water storages were substituted with private ones, directly placed inside the court or between shifted caravans.12 By attempting to release the social tension, refugees produced households that were similar in their concept and design to the traditional Islamic house. This is not surprising since refugees were actually the architects, following the codes of culture and traditions that are mostly derived from Islamic values.

Figure 2: A Cluster in the Old Camp Source : Author

The principles, on which households were designed, influenced the resulting habitat, as well. While many parts of the new camp are still in a state of transition, the crystallised urban structure of the old camp was similar in its organic compositions to that found in the old Medina where the privacy of the households produced and shaped all the other spaces (see fig. 2). For instance, streets surrounding clusters became spaces for interaction between the new neighbours.13 The resulting irregular urban form did not only help refugees to increase the privacy of their households through curved entries and side doors but also produced niches and corners for socialising and economic activities – a semi-public space. An owner of a vegetable stall explained: “I enjoy be-

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ing around the Hara here where my friends and I can sit, drink tea and talk … like an ‘aade sha’beye (informal gathering)”.14 However, while women may have less presence in public and semi-public spaces than men, communal kitchens were transformed into women-friendly spaces for social gathering and interaction.15 Moreover, cul du sacs were curved throughout the clusters, reaching the households inside and creating semi-private spaces that are exhaustively shared between residents. Refugees compared these spaces to other urbanised settings in Syria like the old Haras or even the highly urbanised Palestinian camps, which hints on the level of urbanity connoted within these spaces and reached in the Zaatari camp.

Conclusion This paper sheds light on one of many aspects, regarding the urbanisation of the Zaatari camp.16 The emergence of habitat was a result of the reciprocal relationship between a humanitarian order that is constrained within its very limited, standardised, and universal nature; and a socio-cultural order that is inherited, yet, collectively produced and reproduced by the daily activity of refugees in the camp. Tensions produced by this relationship were shaped by planning policies, which served as rapid tools for response and implementation, yet failed to address refugees’ socio-cultural needs.

Planning of refugee camps has been long criticised for the same principles on which the Zaatari camp was planned. Recent published and unpublished documents by UNHCR attempt to address these problems and develop proper strategies for shelter. Some of them even go beyond that, attempting to find alternative solutions for refugee camps. However, two main simple facts can no longer be neglected, and need to be urgently addressed in order to provide a ground for UNHCR’s operations.

First, in its Global Shelter and Settlement Strategy (2014-2018), UNHCR (2014b) provides headlines on methods and approaches for delivering sustainable shelter and livelihoods for refugees. In this document, UNHCR continues to use its technical humanitarian language to vaguely define terms such as a ‘master plan, at a time when meaningful urban planning is urgently needed to be introduced in refugee camps. While UNHCR is not a planning agency, to turn a blind eye to the importance of urban planning in refugee camps is a threat to all humanitarian strategies and operations in refugee camps.

An addition to this is, perhaps, an inherited and subconscious perception of refugee camps as exceptional spaces. This exceptionality surrounding refugee camps, for reasons that were discussed elsewhere (Dalal, 2014), introduce them as fields for ‘exceptional’ interventions. These interventions, usually charged by an international enthusiasm to solve highly globalised issues like refugee camps, become another source of unwanted trouble, as they do not intend to address the real problem caused by certain equilibrium of power relations, but to fool it around, usually causing other unwanted and unnecessary additions.

Endnotes 1. This was especially critical in Al-Mafraq governorate where the ratio of Syrians to Jordanians exceeded 60% (MercyCorps, 2013). This pressure influenced a public survey in 2012 where 80% of the residents of Al-Mafraq affirmed that Syrian refugees should be segregated from the hosting communities and be accommodated in camps, which has led to the opening of the Zaatari camp in July 2012 (ibid).

2. Henri Lefebvre considers the city as ‘a present and immediate reality, a practico-material and architectural fact’, and the urban as ‘a social reality made up of relations which are to be conceived of, constructed and reconstructed by thought’ (1996: 103). Based on that, it could be said that the city in the Zaatari camp is very limited to repetition of very few elements which are transforming the camp into a homogenous carpet. However, this distinction allows us to distinguish the urban, and not be conceived by the limited materiality of space.

3. Closed camps were introduced by Sari Hanafi (2008) as an unnatural setting where refugees are socially and contextually segregated from the hosting state. Therefore, they are considered to be a matter of disciplinary power which has negative impacts on refugees and camps in terms of poverty, urban identity and relation to the nation state.

4. UNHCR has observed around 127,000 refugees crossing the borders each month, whereas a local newspaper estimated

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the arrival of 1000 to 1500 Syrian refugees to Jordan at that time.

5. The NGO is a non-profit organisation known as The Jordan Hashemite Charity Organisation for Relief and Development (JHCO). It was established in 1990 and has provided humanitarian assistance in more than 34 countries around the world. However, the work of JHCO was limited to distributing humanitarian relief and participating in medical assistance, and has never reached up the level of running, coordination and implementing works in a refugee camp.

6. Communal infrastructure is latrines/bathrooms, kitchens and water tanks shared between a number of refugees according to the humanitarian SPHERE standards.

7. Sectors like health, children care, and education receive most of the attention compared to other sectors. For instance, 15 different NGOs are providing medical support to refugees; whereas one is assisting in livelihoods, and three in shelter.

8. At the beginning, tents were provided as the classical UNHCR solution for shelter. However, they were unable to protect refugees from harsh weather, especially during snowfalls and heavy rains were they tended to collapse and damage.

Therefore, caravans, which were brought to the camp by external donors, appeared to be a more durable solution, and thus, caravanisation became the current camp policy.

9. While a 3.5 m2 of covered space is met by the shelter unit, a 30 to 45 m2 of open space is offered to refugees through camp space (REACH & UNHCR, 2013).

10. Meaning one family or more living together due to kinship relations or hosting individual relatives that are not directly related (uncles, husbands of aunts, wives of uncles, nephews, etc.).

11. The current camp policy provides one caravan per family. However, refugee families either decide to: live together, grouping caravans to create a bigger household; as individual families purchasing caravans which were distributed to other families earlier; or simply inherit them by relatives who left the camp (REACH & UNHCR, 2013), taking into consideration that around 300,000 refugees were assisted in the camp and then left afterwards (UNHCR, 2014a).

12. When tents were substituted with caravans in the old camp, refugees took the initiative to connect their households, producing large clusters that could reach up to 25 families or more. Some of them were even collectively connected to sewage systems. For more information, see (Dalal, 2014).

13. Hara is an Arabic term that means neighbourhood. However, it holds strong social connotations of solidarity and belonging.

14. One refugee expressed this fact by saying: “I have a private kitchen at home, but I prefer to use the communal kitchen where I meet my friends and neighbours …. There, we can talk about the Syrian’s habits of cooking, and discover the differences between them … . I’m learning a new recipe in the kitchen every day!”

15. For more information see (Dalal, 2014).

References ACTED, JEN, OXFAM, & UNICEF. (2013). WASH Sector Knowledge, Attitude and Practices Survey in Za’atari Refugee Camp November (pp. 1–51).

Dalal, A. (2014). Camp Cities between Planning and Practice: Mapping the Urbanisation of Zaatari Camp. Stuttgart University & Ain Shams University.

Hanafi, S. (2008). Palestinian Refugee Camps: Disciplinary Space and Territory of Exception.

Lefebvre, H., Kofman, E., & Lebas, E. (1996). Writings on cities.

MercyCorps. (2013). Mapping of Host Community-Refugee Tensions in Mafraq and Ramtha , JORDAN. (pp. 1–23).

REACH. (2013). Key Findings of REACH Camp Sweep in Za’atari: Factsheet (p. 5).

REACH, & UNHCR. (2013). Al Za’atari Camp Sweep Report: A shelter and NFIs assessment for winterization programming (p. 14).

UN. (2014a). 2014 Syria Regional Response Plan.

UN. (2014b). 2014 Syria Regional Response Plan: Jordan.

UNHCR. (2014a). Za’atari Refugee Camp: 2013 Safety and Security Report (pp. 1–18).

UNHCR. (2014b). UNHCR’s Global Shelter and Settlement Strategy, 2014-2018 (pp. 1–23).

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Source: Author

Public Spaces and Sectarian Tensions in Beirut The Production of Public Space in the Context of Sectarianism and Neoliberalism Author: Irmtraud Eckart Supervisor 1: Prof. Dr. Youhansen Yehya Eid, Professor of Urban Planning - Ain Shams University, Egypt Supervisor 2: Vertr. Prof. Dr. Nina Gribat, Interim Professor of Int’l Urbanism - University of Stuttgart, Germany Supervisor 3: Dr. Shadia Husseini de Araújo, Department of Geography -University of Brasília, Brazil The study aims at investigating the circumstances in which the production of public space is taking place – thereby especially focusing on implications of neoliberalism and sectarianism. Doing-so Lefebvre’s idea of (public) space being produced within a spatial triad (consisting of conceived, perceived and lived space (1991)) is taken to hand in order to deconstruct the processes, which are constituting public space between diverse actors based on their agendas. Therein the strength is to not just investigate material elements of spatial production (regulations, signs, design patterns etc.) but also immaterial ones. Doing-so by initially asking how neoliberal and sectarian representations are affecting the official urban planning in Beirut. In a second step, exactly these elements and their respective influence on users in specific public spaces are examined. The focus is on the particular constitution of the chosen case studies regarding their potential to function as shared spaces in the sense of an inter-religious rapprochement in a sectarianized environment..

Keywords: Production of Space, Sectarianism, Neoliberalism, Divided City, Post-War Reconciliation, Conflict Management

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Context During the 16 year long civil war in Beirut – from 1975 until 1991 – sectarian tensions manifested themselves in the cityscape in a much more radical manner than in the decades before the war. The city of Beirut, especially, developed to partition itself into religious turfs by on-going processes of homogenization. These processes finally resulted in a complete division of the city into an Eastern (Christian) and a Western (Muslim) part, divided along the battle line running from North to South – the Greenline. Even though, nowadays, physical borders and separations have been abolished, imagined boundaries still exist in the people’s minds. Spatial demarcations and territorialization by means of sectarian devices are maintaining the division of Beirut. For that reason, public spaces are so far not used in shared and unlimited manners as the mere structure of the city does not allow for unconfined movement or spatial claims (at least).

Figure 1: The Greenline Dividing Beirut in East and West in the mindsets of the residents - Edging on Solidere in the North and Horsh Beirut in the South Source: Own source

Research Aim and Questions Accordingly, the study aims at investigating these circumstances in which the production of public space is taking place – thereby especially focusing on implications of neoliberalism and sectarianism. Doing so, Lefebvre’s idea of (public) space being produced within a spatial triad (consisting of conceived, perceived and lived space (1991)) is taken to hand in order to de-construct the processes, which constitute the public space between diverse actors, based on their agendas. Therein, the strength is not just to investigate the material elements of spatial production (regulations, signs, design patterns etc.) but immaterial ones, as well doing so by initially asking how neoliberal and sectarian representations are affecting the official urban planning in Beirut. In a second step, exactly these elements and their respective influences on users in specific public spaces are examined. The focus is on the particular constitution of the chosen case studies regarding their potential to function as shared spaces in the sense of an inter-religious rapprochement in a sectarianized environment. Ensuing from this, it is asked:

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1. How is the official planning of public spaces – as representations of space in a Lefebvrian sense –related to the concept of sectarianism? (Discourse about Public Space; Execution of Public Space.)

2. How are spatial practices, in the different public spaces, displaying religious affiliation? How is this specific constitution of the public spaces conducive for the emergence of representational space in the form of inter-religious rapprochement (in the environment of sectarian tensions)?

Figure 2: Uneven Distribution of Public Spaces in Beirut Source: Own source

Structure The thesis is divided into two main parts – a theoretical part as well as an empirical one. The theoretical part, which enables a better understanding of the conceptual framework that underlies the research question, consists of the Introduction with a short overview of the context as well as the Research Aim and Questions.

Marking-off from another research in the field, the study neither solely focuses on an architectural viewpoint nor on mere politico-sociological implications, as explained in the State of the Art (chapter 2). However, it elaborates on the correlation between both aspects by focusing on the concept of shared public space.

Chapter three, forms the Theoretical-Philosophical Framework that informs the understanding of space as a socially produced construct in the vein of Lefebvre’s (1991) spatial triad as well as its declaration as a site with, and of, an emancipatory function for society. It also depicts neoliberal city restructuring in general – yet also, in its specific relation to religion, hinting at the context of a divided city of sectarian turfs. Within the chapter, insights are given about the constructivist approach upon which the whole study is based, edging also on ideas of discursive formations as a means of hegemonial knowledge in a Foucauldian sense. Moreover, implications of sectarianism and neoliberalism are explained within the theoretical part to provide an understanding of the setting the research is located in.

The fourth chapter sheds light on the research project itself by explaining more about the accruing research questions in relation to the applied methodology. Moreover, insight is given about data analysis, evolving research limitations and the positioning of the researcher.

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Chapter five, which holds the Empirical Findings, answers the two research questions. Under point 5.1., the official planning side/the conceived space is investigated by looking at discursive structures as well as the execution and implementation of public spaces. The second part (5.2.) takes on the findings by relating them to a more specific context through elaborations on particular cases from the perspective of perceived and representational space. The findings, recommendations as well as points of further research are presented in the Conclusion (chapter 6).

Theoretical-Philosophical Framework

Figure 3: Lefebve`s Spatial Triad Source: Own source

Public Space As a (Threefold) Social Construct: To capture the processual character of changing user constellations and their relation to each other, space needs to be understood as a social product that is formed by its actual users. By acknowledging this, a basis is given to de-construct the respective spaces according to their users and practices. Hence, it is possible to disclose broader political and societal dimensions of space by analyzing the actors’ agendas. Instead of solely looking at the users themselves, Lefebvre’s threefold approach also enables an investigation of the planning side and dominant paradigms, which are, in fact, affecting the users’ practices. This also includes reflections on material and immaterial elements. Instead of solely focusing on the material side of public spaces such as design elements, signs, restricting frameworks, a possibility is given to also include discursive formations which are influential for the production of public space.

Discursive Production of Hegemonic Knowledge: The notion of hegemonic knowledge and truth production within discursive processes (Foucault 1972) becomes very much important in this context. (Planning) institutions, in particular, base their decisions on hegemonic knowledge and what renders them unassailable to a certain point. A discursive process is a specific tool to produce a broadly acknowledged truth, which is then inherited by “ordinary” people. This “self-government” of people along particular behavioral guidelines is also known as governmentality with neoliberal states.

Neoliberalism and Sectarianism as Cross-Current, Limiting Planning Parameters with Similar Outcomes: Especially in neoliberal states, the idea of self-government is very important. This means an orientation of peoples’ behavioral codices along economic paradigms. By looking at neoliberal modes of urban planning, similar processes can be observed – especially in the public domain. Yet, in the case of Beirut, also other parameters, namely religiously informed ones (by sectarianism), are quite important in forming space. The emancipatory function of space claims agonism/ordinary controversies crucial or even necessary to overcome the respective controversial aspects in a society, hence leading to a more political formation of a society. The most controversially contested aspect in Lebanon, so far, is religion. Accordingly, public spaces under a severe neoliberal influence as well as under strong sectarian affection are both rather limited in their function to foster representational space/emancipatory space when this form of controversy implies stronger and more diverse represen-

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tations of religion in space. Thus, the production of spaces takes place within a bipolar continuum that evolves in-between processes of neoliberalization as one pole and sectarianization as its antipode.

Methodology

Figure 4: Responsiveness of Research Design & Theory Source: Own source

The first question is investigated according to the concept of representations of space/conceived space. Thereby, discursive formations about space are taken into consideration, on the one hand, while on the other hand, the actual execution of the spaces is investigated. Responding to the parameter of perceived space, the second questions looks at “how spatial practices in different public spaces display religious affiliation”. A further aspect of the question hints at the potential of counter-active, lived space by analyzing – “how is the specific constitution of the chosen public spaces conducive for the emergence of representational space in the form of inter-religious rapprochement”.

Responding to this specific research design, different forms of data collection have been applied, consisting of interviews (user interviews/civil society, key-person interviews and expert interviews), participative observations as well as analyses of already existing primary data (project descriptions, urban planning visions, archives etc.). Research questions regarding methods for data generation have been, particularly, tailored for them, respectively. These specific methods are also linked to Lefebvre’s concept.

The case study design is an integrated single case design (various objects of analysis/public spaces in the specific context of Beirut). There are no presumptive hypotheses as well as no final answers, thus it can be described as an analytical-explorative one. The aim is to, solely; provide a better understanding of a situation.

The six-case study sites have been deliberately chosen due to their ability to showcase different stages in between the continuum of neoliberalism and sectarianism (ranging from sites in significantly neoliberal zones of influence in Downtown Beirut (Khalil Gibran Garden) to spaces neither massively influenced by neoliberalism nor by religious settings (Daliyeh, Jesuits Garden/ Geitawi, Sioufi Garden/ Ashrafiyyeh) to those of severe sectarian influence and territorialization (Horsh Beirut, Municipal Football Stadium/ Tariq el-Jdideh)). Spaces related to consumptive activities (markets, etc.) as well as public institutions (schools, universities, libraries) have been intentionally excluded also as spaces in the form of streets, plazas and squares as the majority of them lack to the characteristic element of spending time for the sheer purpose of leisure than to fulfill any activity.

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Empirical Findings Through exposing supposedly rising sectarian tensions several times as reason to restrict unlimited usage of public spaces, sectarian implications appear not to have a crucial impact on decisions taken by the official side.

Rather, sectarian narratives and stigmatization of more traditional forms of living seem to mask economical agendas, which have a significant financial purpose more than being concerned with security issues. Forms of surveillance and safeguarding, therefore, need to be read as a means to restrict and control users as well as the way spaces are used. This is not to secure safety in terms of sectarian tensions, but to ensure a financially flourishing environment that is not disrupted by people of lower socio-economic status. This might, immediately, lead to direct financial losses and a significant degradation of the places in terms of international inter-urban competition on the long-term. The findings are supported by the broad integration of security devices, processes of privatizing spaces as well as their maintenance, the connection of financially promising parking-systems with redevelopment projects of parks and a general concentration of public spaces within the neoliberal influence zone of Beirut. The planned Central-Park project of Horsh Beirut and the Hippodrome are portraying these findings par excellence. According to the neoliberal restructuring of Beirut, negative conations of certain socio-economic parts, which are often also more religiously significant, are discursively formed.

Source?

Figure 5: The Neoliberal Influence zone of Beirut Source: Own source

Related to their particular setting, the respective case study sites vary in their potentials for representational space – in the form of inter-religious reconciliation – to arise. Thereby, an unproportional dominant formation of representations of space/conceived space inevitably leads to a diminishing manifestation of representational space/lived space – as they are counteractive to each other. For that, spaces that are located in a significant neoliberal surrounding (e.g. Khalil Gibran Garden) which prohibits any religious rapprochement by neutralizing any religious implication. Contrasting to this, spaces of strong religious impact (e.g. Tariq el-Jdideh) are also hindering such processes as they do not suppress religion per se but religious variety in public spaces. Yet, the stronger the publicly displayed religious affiliation, the higher the usage of public space appears.

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Figure 6: Specific Constitution of Public Spaces according to Lefebvre`s Triad) Source: Own source

Conclusion Ensuing from the research, it can be stated that an unproportional dominant formation of representations of space/conceived space inevitably leads to a diminishing manifestation of representational space/lived space – as they are counteractive to each other. In the case of Beirut, the most important representations are both related to religion so far as the neoliberal paradigm attempts to banish religion per se from the public, since it does not fit into the global and international portrayal of the developing city. Also, the more sectarian representations related to the idea that space should not be kept free of religious implications, but should, solely, serve one certain branch instead, consequently excluding all other religious sects – in the sense of sectarianism. Representational space, accordingly, challenges the status of a completely banned or partially banned religion. Yet, the stronger the publicly displayed affiliation, the higher the usage of public space appears. His observation might be, in parts, related to a lower socio-economic status of citizens of more traditional and religious backgrounds. People of higher social layers, in general, discarded the idea of using public spaces for leisure activities.

Figure 7: Relation Rep. Of Space, User-Diversity and Total Number of Users Source: Own source

By investigating the reality of public spaces in Beirut, it became clear that, according to certain usage patterns (might they be of a sectarian origin or just customized habits), space is not inevitably used in shared manners just because it actually is public and inclusive to a relatively high degree. Moreover, even when being used in a

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shared manner, it does not indicate that people using the same site are also interacting, especially when being of diverse, religious background. To foster religious reconciliation or rapprochement, significant incentives need to be given to the people. This can be achieved either by making them break through their usage habits and visit public spaces that are not within their normal radius or through organizing and supervising mixed, religious happenings in spaces that are actually used by diverse actors but that do not provoke inter-religious contact so far.

Figure 8: Potential of Public Spaces for Representational Space Source: Own source

The most crucial paradigm is to remain neutral in the framing of activities, their implementation and execution. Though giving space to religion per se, any sectarian implication needs to be entirely excluded. Yet, to remain neutral should not be commingled with a complete neutralization or sanitization of space from any religious implication as this does not open up possibilities for reconciliation. Assumptions about political functions of space appeared in the context of Beirut, which is, anyhow, over-politicized, so far as it is not realized as advisable, as well.

In terms of further research fields, it would be worth having a closer look at the modes of territorialization as one certain layer. Thereby, it should be asked in how far usage patterns really resemble patterns of fear or religious territories or whether they are rather mere habits. Yet, it should always be questioned in how far an entirely inclusive city with people sharing everything and intermixing everywhere is more a utopian imagination than rooted in reality. For that, there should be the openness to also see usage patterns as customized habits to make sense of one’s own living reality than interpreting it, solely, as sectarianized. The very political aspect of public spaces and sectarian tensions is another layer that needs to be investigated more profoundly, especially in the sense of patronage systems or clientelism. Last but not least, attention should be directed towards the question in how far neoliberal city restructuring in Beirut can be understood as a monolithic apparatus that just causes harm or rather – as introduced within this study – from a more processual viewpoint. To fully understand the relation of Public Spaces and Sectarian Tensions in the case of Beirut, it appears to be crucial to elaborate more on the notion of “public” itself.

References Foucault, Michel (1986) Space, knowledge and power, in Rabinow P. (ed) The Foucault Reader, Penguin 239-254 Lefebvre, Henri (1991) The Production of Space, John Wiley& Sons

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View of Rawabi in 2013 (1) Source: Rawabi 2013

Real Estate Nationalism What is the global market citizenry without a state?

Author: Athar Mufreh Vertr. Prof. Dr. Nina Gribat, Interim Professor of International Urbanism - University of Stuttgart, Germany Dr. Yehya Mohamed Serag, Associate Professor of Urban and Regional Planning -Ain Shams University, Egypt Prof. Dr. Ayman Ashour, Professor of Architecture and Urban Planning - Ain Shams University, Egypt After the launching of an economic solution for peace, Palestinian cities have been increasingly performing under a neoliberal economy. During the period between 1993-2003, the development of cities depended largely on international aids, NGOs and the flux of returnees. Thus, the building activity ranged from apartment housing, commercial centres and public institutions of the Palestinian Authority (PA). After 2003, the economic-peace process marked a new wave of construction activity. It showed high neoliberal economic concentration in suburban neighbourhoods and modern leisure spaces (executive clubs, cafe’s, bars, etc.). However, a third wave of construction showed a real estate driven development. New actors from major real estate companies and Palestinian businessmen have become involved in the peace process and the Palestinian state building project. The aim of this research is to reveal the ways in which the market economy and real estate developers in particular, are leading de facto in a Palestinian state-building project. In the absence of a defined governmental planning vision and institutions, these land developers are creating a market-oriented notion of citizenship and identity practices tied to emerging urban brands.

Key words: global market, economic peace, nation-state, citizenship, Rawabi.

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1993 94 95 96 97 98 98 99 2000 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 FIRST WAVE OF REFORMS

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CHANGE IN REAL GDP - 20% PER CAPITA 1994 - 2010 cf. 1999

Affordable Housing Program Oslo Accords

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Peace Plans = Closure Policies

The Economic Road Map for a

Second Intifada

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- 40%

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ACTORS INVOLVED

Figure 1: Political Economic Restructuring (1993-2014). The political changes after the Oslo agreement were accompanied by an economic crisis until 2003, until the economic road map was issued in London. The two phases before and after the economic-peace plans contained enormous changes in the Palestinian urban context, sovereignty, actor’s involvement and the PA waves of reforms.

Source: Author

Border identification - Peace The long history of the different planning regimes shows that the resulting planning system is fragmented as much as the territories are geographically. That condition has become more precarious as the Israeli occupation has exploited the colonial archive of legal tools (a form of what is termed ‘lawfare’ (Weizman 2007)) to fragment any conceivable Palestinian state. Outdated, fragmented, and ambiguous laws are, thus, the outcome—and in a sense, the goal—of the existing colonial planning layers. As a complement to this, regime amendments and ambiguity in the planning process created the conditions for another form of urban-architectural practice, one that functions through the occupation system – global real estate. The evolution of the global real estate market under the occupation has become the dominant spatial practice in the West Bank and the leading force for the Palestinian economy.

The idea that peace, defined as a solution based on a two-state concept for Israel and Palestine, is not possible under current conditions. As several authors have argued (Azoulay (2008), Weizman (2007), Shehadah (2008), Said (2002) etc.), the notion of dividing the region into two states is hardly possible on the spatial level, let alone politically. Therefore, other, main economic alternatives are now emerging to define another form of peace. The context of elastic frontiers, economic imbalances, uncertain two-state solutions, uncertain institutions, etc. has made temporariness and ambiguity the norm, and something else has taken the place of the traditional approach towards the nation-state. This national void has been seized by real estate developers who have, perhaps, inadvertently, taken the initiative of building the Palestinian state’s geography and policy.

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What sort of nationalism is generated by the new towns and real estate developments in Palestine? Why should this form of global real estate be so important for the birth of the Palestinian nation-state and the imagined community of the nation?

Peace Plans as Economic Plans In response to these conditions and the failure of peace plans, in 2003, the Economic Road Map for a two-state solution was issued in London. This road map was issued to consider a re-orientation of peace policy concepts, initiated by the Madrid Quartet, in light of the previous policies’ shortcomings. The Economic Road Map marked an overall shift of how to achieve peace – rather than a system of separation and border-negotiation, peace became a process of providing economic well being to Palestinians after adopting the free market concepts. This change defines a concrete step towards the aspirations of a prosperous peace and a Palestinian state that is open to the world and the capitalist market. In other words, the Economic stagnation was turned into adopting concepts of the free market to bring a new alternative to the long-lasting border negotiations. The economic crisis manipulation was dealt with as a crisis of housing and unemployment.

Increasingly after publishing the Economic Road Map, many projects were built by Palestinian businessmen and real estate companies were kick started under a public-private partnership with the Palestinian Authority (PA). Other new master planned communities, in the form of neighbourhoods and new cities have been constructed. The projects are marketed to be sustainable, green, affordable, modern, and organized, which indicates a new living style-obtained by a modern architectural practice in the Occupied Territories – a sort of architecture and economy that contribute to the peace process with new power replacements; a generic architecture in a generic image as a place for a new colonial plan. The argument presented here is that global real estate investment is penetrating through the fragmented, occupied territory and entering primarily into housing/construction developments. With its housing policies toward affordability, the PA has, in fact, been attempting to direct that flow of money into a broad public benefit. Real estate developers have now carved out their own powerful positions by spearheading key governmental reformations and enablers. The private sector enablers came, mainly, as marketization conferences, public-private partnerships, law and policy reforms, and another wave of PA’s institutional reforms.

Peace Plans as Master Plans The global real estate model has been introduced into an occupied region as a tool for crisis management and economic growth. The model, mentioned in this essay, supposedly has the highest potential, above other economic sectors, to improve West Bank unemployment and housing shortages. The Palestinian Reform and Development Plan (PRDP), drawn up at the Paris Economic Protocol in 2007, assigned affordable housing as the developmental main priority (PNA 2007). Meanwhile, the Portland Trust (the British non-profit ‘action tank’ focused on promoting peace and stability between Israelis and Palestinians by means of economic development) prepared to a billion dollar fund for building 15,000 affordable housing units in Palestine. These were distributed amongst six new communities across the West Bank located around the cities of Ramallah, Nablus, Jenin, Hebron, and Bethlehem. In the name of economic peace, this initiative aimed to provide affordable housing for working Palestinians earning a monthly income between $800-$1400, offer job opportunities, and increase the annual GDP to around 8%, in the designated period – 2008-2013 (The Portland Trust 2009).

One of the initiative’s purported potentials is to establish a new way of living and a long-term vision for prosperous, modern Palestinian communities. According to Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS), the housing shortage runs at, approximately, 78,000 units as of 2002, and it is estimated to reach 200,000 by 2020. The economic peace plans, which are thus primarily focused on creating jobs and building dwellings, have by now gone so far so as to appoint specific affordable housing and real estate consulting firms to start the

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planning and investment of the so-called “new planned communities”. To meet the high demand of modern sustainable communities, the Portland Trust created a marketing image for the new communities and undertook responsibility for the key logistical assignments. They developed the overall program and methods of financing, identified private sector developers and their respective areas of investment, and promoted the program internationally. An important move was their commissioning of the international architectural-planning firm AECOM to design the master plan for a new Palestinian city (AECOM 2008). Their “generic master plan” could serve as a standard for all of the new planned communities. The project was then assigned a real site, an area nearby Ramallah, what was to become the city of Rawabi (the Portland Trust 2009).

Rawabi: The leading real estate model The analysis of Rawabi showed the real estate infrastructure as three forms of imagining the new communities of the Palestinian nation-state. Master plans, marketing slogans, new visions and contracts are the essential elements to look at in the case of a real estate model. The analysis of these three forms unveiled the facts, national visions, and aims behind building Rawabi, and the global real estate model in the occupied territories, in general. Elements like ownership and contracts performed to create the subdivision of lands and persons, which reflected a more geographical fragmentation. Title deeds performed as an apparatus to limit investment risks with the occupation violation of non-registered lands, which made it easier for it and benefitted their control system. The first form attempts to characterize the architecture of the new developments, which adopts planning ideologies inherited from the architecture of occupation (settlements). Most of the planning and architectural ideologies of these new communities, if not all of them, enable an even deeper occupation to take hold by reproducing the occupation’s features. The other two forms of imagining attempt to change—first and foremost—the aspirations of Palestinians and to provide a sense of stability.

Furthermore, the housing market had caused high uncertainty, which affected the residential real estate boom.

In the case of Rawabi, the new city is but one component in a comprehensive project of converting the international aid into a combination of peace-making and real estate investment. This project includes planned neighbourhoods enclaves in a partnership with the Qatari Diar Real Estate Investment Company that envisions improving and enhancing people’s quality of life with modern international standards. As a form of speculative investment, these new real estate schemes are trying to register as much land as possible, exploiting a land dispossession process and the definition of new geographical boundaries. In the transitions from non-registered to registered, these are starting to form a new geography that creates more enclaves, but are the newly registered lands meant to be the new national border after the 1967- armistice line?

The real estate marketing campaign of Rawabi is dominated by slogans proclaiming to be the so-called first planned, green, high-tech and pedestrian Palestinian city. However, the campaign also seems to be a way to appeal to traditional and/or nationalist ideals, change minds, and create a screen that blocks much of the reality behind building this new city. One of the main spaces designed to support the selling of Rawabi’s apartments is the now famous Showroom. The process of marketing the city using this space is key to understanding the economic ideology of the city. The showroom is designed as the shape of a sea wave, built on the highest hilltop in the site, overlooking the coastal area of Tel Aviv. This special location is a highly economized space in which potential buyers and future residents can discover all the technology that was manufactured to market the city at its best. From a 3D cinema room, giant iPads, telescopes, detailed physical models, pop-up bank branches, posters, guides, and newsletters to samples of interior spaces, windows, doors, materials, gardens, playgrounds and other infrastructure details. These marketing slogans and spaces function as an economic machine manufactured to, purposefully or not, reorient Palestinian conceptions of identity, family, culture, and aspirations. Using a spectacle of modern technology, the city’s marketing, certainly, seems to be succeeding in changing visitors’ eyes, imaginations, and aspirations.

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Rawabi’s master plan is based on a neighbourhood system, which means neighbourhood-level planning, and neighbourhood-level governance. Given that, Rawabi planners and developers produced an adapted version of the American neighbourhood governance system known as the “Home Owner Association” (HOAs) (Rawabi 2013). In addition, Rawabi developers created a special mortgage program which depends on long-term bank loans and discounts (Rawabi 2014). This program has enabled middle-income families to have the stability of owning a home without stressing their monthly income. In comparison, home ownership in the Palestinian context constitutes a heavy load on their lives for many reasons and difficulties. Thus, the special mortgage program of Rawabi and the terms of the long-term loans are contestable. With the promised middle class community, there is the promise of political stability, openness, and access to the world, open for business and open for modernity.

Global Market Citizenry To maintain sovereignty over the lands of Palestine and the Palestinians, the Israeli occupation aggravated power relations between the occupier and the occupied. Power relations here refer to the Palestinian Authority and the real estate market. The first power replacement was in 1993 when the Palestinian Authority was established to withdraw from its responsibility over the occupied population and to avoid facing international law violations. Thus, sovereignty transfer here was a process of legalizing military in addition to economic violence. The second power replacement occurred in 2003 when the Economic Road Map essentially announced that the global market was the deciding factor for Palestinian liberation and self-determination. In this way, the Palestinian private sector becomes the sovereign; the “authority.” Nevertheless, this new authority is still controlled by Israeli’s control over the market. The argument presented here is that the new economic power is using three forms of imagining in regards to the nation-state aspiration – master plans, marketing slogans, and contracts. These forms confront three realities respectively – the occupation system, changing aspirations, and providing certainty and stability.

Against the political order of the nation-state (liberal citizen) and the global market (consumer), the three forms mentioned above relate to the form of photography that Ariella Azoulay has described as a means to create universal citizenship (Azoulay 2008). Azoulay has explained that the media of photography constitutes a type of citizenship based on the exercise on citizenship, not the status: “not a state, but a citizenry, a virtual citizenry” (Azoulay 2008:142). Her assertions could help clarify how the Palestinian nation-state is taking shape in the capitalist market citizenry. In addition, since the definition of a nation-state, in the traditional sense, stops at territorialisation and national borders, the notions of citizenship, stability, and normalcy do not need to be directly tied to certain identified territories. The capitalist market citizenry paves its way to the globe to offer a more universal identification of citizenship. However, only those possessing a sufficient financial sway in the market and the circulation of a global capital are able to actualise their citizenship. For this reason, it is an artificial citizenship. Globalisation and neo-liberalisation are evolving in Palestine and opening the way for a universal Palestinian citizenship status. The capitalist market’s citizenship, also known as “transnational citizenship”, means a membership in the global market. Therefore, when the territorialisation of the Palestinian state does not and is not expected to succeed for a long time, the global market opens the world of high technology and citizenship to give Palestinians accessibility to a simulation, substitution, or alternative of the modern nation-state. Citizenship, in this context, means to be open to well being and good living conditions, where good living means to exercise your freedom of movement, ownership, business, and modernity in limited enclaves.

Azoulay’s assertion intersects with Anderson’s definition of the nation or nationalism as a “politically imagined community” without any preceding geographical determination (Anderson 1991). Real Estate Nationalism highlights how the market economy is gradually producing the “imagined” state, and consequently—following

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the modern logic of the nation-state—the production of an occupied yet, seemingly, economically liberated citizenry. Furthermore, Roy and Al-Sayyad argued that gated communities have embodied a distinct territorialisation of citizenship or “spatial governmentality” based on contractual associations such as the Home Owner Associations. These neighbourhoods are, usually, governed by private developers and the individual owners themselves, a situation in which the state does not, or cannot, intervene and where rights and duties are enforced by the governing body and private developers. The regulations, civic good, and services enforced in gated communities, depend on fees (a form of private taxation) collected from the “members” (Roy and AlSayyad 2013). This explains the distinction between “members” of contemporary real estate developments in the West Bank—their rights, duties, and relations—and the imposed non-citizen status of Palestinians in the nation-state framework. The key here is about the sovereignty as well as who is governing.

The birth, organization, and standardisation of the global real estate infrastructure have served, here, as a means to understand and contest the function of contemporary real estate schemes in the West Bank. The new cities and neighbourhoods embody new and ultimately precarious notions of Palestinian collectivity, aspirations and citizenship. They represent a challenging form of urbanism that has, so far, primarily served to create further divisions and mechanisms of control, a continuous process of enclavisation and territorial fragmentation. Yet, they also open up a new mode of resistance that architectural practices in Palestine should take into consideration. Their aim should not be to stop or tear down such developments, but to engage their historical and/or colonial examples as a starting point.

Endnotes 1. Cover Photo: Rawabi is the West Bank’s first Palestinian-planned city, under construction since 2010. The city is located north of Ramallah. It is designed to accommodate 40,000 residents upon completion. Besides to the Israeli settlements themselves, Rawabi is the very first large-scale private sector land development project of its kind in Palestine; its political, legal, environmental, material and economic implications readily assemble a full house of actors, policies, and controversy. The project is developed by Bayti Real Estate Investment Company, the venture of the Ramallah-based Massar International and government-owned Qatari Diyar.

References Abourahme, N. (2009). Contours of the Neoliberal City: fragmentation, frontier geographies, and the new circularity. Voices of Resistance from Occupied London, (4), pp.50-54. [online] Available at: http://pankov. files.wordpress.com/2010/05/ occupied-london-4.pdf [Accessed 8 Jun. 2014] AECOM. (2008) Rawabi: the New Planned Palestinian City. Smach and Seo Portfolio. [online] available from: http://sasarc.com/portfolio/rawabi/residential/presentation.html Alsayyad, N. and Roy, A. (2006). Medieval modernity: on citizenship and urbanism in a global era. Space & Polity, 10(1), pp.1--20.

Anderson, B. (1991). Imagined communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism.1st ed. London: Verso.

Azoulay, A. (2008). The civil contract of photography. 1st ed. New York: Zone Books.

PNA, (2007). Building a Palestinian State: Towards Peace and Prosperity. Paris: PNA Rawabi, (2012). Secretary-General of the Palestinian Labor Federations Union: Rawabi contribute to the reduction of unemployment. Rawabi. Available at http://rawabi.ps/newsletter/2012.

Rawabi, (2013). From an Idea to a Project to a City: Rawabi Municipality. Rawabi Rawabi, (2014). New Mortgage Program Designed to Qualify More Buyers in Rawabi.

The Portland Trust, (2009). Palestinian Affordable Housing Programme: Building sustainable communities in Palestine: A deliverable vision for the future. The Portland Trust Weizman, E. (2007). Hollow land: Israeli’s Architecture of Occupation. 1st ed. London: Verso.

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Source: Author

Urban Implications of Palestinians Obtaining Israeli Citizenship in Jerusalem, Palestine Author: Tariq Nassar Supervisor 1: Prof. Dr. Mohamed A. Salheen, Professor of Integrated Planning and Design - Ain Shams University, Egypt Supervisor 2: Vertr. Prof. Dr. Nina Gribat, Interim Professor of Int’l Urbanism - University of Stuttgart, Germany Supervisor 3: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Yehya Serag, Associate Professor of Urban and Regional Planning - Ain Shams University, Egypt This research examines the urban implication of Palestinians obtaining Israeli citizenship in Jerusalem. In order to understand this phenomenon, the research examines the policies that have been implemented in Jerusalem. Some of these polices were translated into plans and regulations and other policies were translated into restrictions on mobility and residency status. All the policies aimed to exclude Palestinians from the city. For Palestinians a sustained housing crisis is the main result from Israeli planning policies for over 46 years. Fear of displacement and losing the right to reside in the city are the main reasons for Palestinians to obtain Israeli citizenship in Jerusalem. The research found that Israeli citizenship with no further political solution as a first scenario is giving Palestinians more right to the city including better access to basic services. In addition, obtaining Israeli citizenship also comes with the right to access alternative housing units outside the city in the West Bank area with no future of political power as perceived benefits. The exclusion lines of offering Israeli citizenship in Jerusalem for Palestinians are to split the minority of Palestinian community and to exclude them from the option of living outside the city. The urban implication of Israeli citizenship in East Jerusalem which is largest inhabited by Palestinians could change the shape of the future political solution between Israeli and Palestinian government.

Keywords: gray city, urban citizenship, exclusion and inclusion lines, displacement, right to the city.

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Introduction Nowadays, the city of Jerusalem includes about 360,000 Palestinians. Before the six-day war in 1967, the structure of the city of Jerusalem was interlinked by complex cultural, social, and economic relationships with other Palestinian cities in the West Bank area. After the six-day war, Israel occupied the West Bank and annexed around 70.5 Km2 of former Palestinian territories – most of this land was included in Jerusalem’s municipality boundary. The Palestinians who remained in Jerusalem were protected by the International Humanitarian Law (IHL) because the annexation was inconsistent with the UN members and the UN Security Council (Unies, 2007). The Israeli Government, at that time, granted the Palestinian Jerusalemites a permanent residency status and offered them the right to apply for Israeli citizenship. However, for over 30 years, Palestinians refused to apply for it because they believed in their right to the city of Jerusalem with a Palestinian identity and envisaged to have it as a capital for Palestine in the future. Since 2000, Palestinians in East Jerusalem increasingly applied for Israeli citizenship. This thesis focuses on the spatial urban impacts of Palestinians obtaining Israeli citizenship in relation to the right of the city. Citizenship reshapes, as will be shown, the lines of inclusion and exclusion in Jerusalem, focusing on planning practices and policies that have been implemented as well as their impacts in relation to citizenship such as their future impacts in terms of displacement, mobility and geopolitical aspects.

1. Literature review The analysis of a political geography of a city, such as Jerusalem, is expanding in new forms of exclusion and inclusion. These forms are conceptualized in gray spaces, positioned between the “whiteness” of legality/ approval/ safety and the “blackness” of eviction / destruction / death. The blackness of planning policies in gray spaces could reach the appearance of urban informalities in a city without a clear and written ethno-national ideology. The state of Israel is declared a Jewish state, so all the planning practices and policies were targeted to keep the majority of the state Jewish, or Israeli as a second target. Oren Yiftachel, came up with this theory, which was based on his studies for the Israeli government’s practices in Israel, and especially in Jerusalem.

Planning policies, in general, aimed to develop a specific territory as an urban area which it should be whiteness with its clarity, but these policies could have a hidden agenda behind them, which may result in blackness.

Gray spaces with defined territories, on the state level or even the city level, contain a multitude of groups, bodies, housing, land, economies, and discourses. These entire multitudes, lying under the umbrella are, literally, “in the shadow” of a formal, planned city, polity and economy (Yiftachel, 2009b). A gray space could be identified as a ceaseless process of producing different social relations, passed to the community in modernist dichotomy between “legal” and “criminal”, “oppressed” and “subordinated”, “fixed” and “temporary”. In East Jerusalem, a dark side of the city has been neglected without any development plans known, in planning theory, as “urban development.” This dark side of the city has been identified with a clear boundary, so these areas cannot be expanded horizontally with the natural growth. The informality that has been created in East Jerusalem was planned by the power of the state to be identified as gray spaces within the city.

The structures of the Israeli citizenship concept are based on ethnicity, as will be explained later. Marshall’s theory that concentrated on three main cores of citizenship – civil, social, and political citizenship – is very useful in describing the way citizenship concretely evolved in the European context after the end of World War II. However, it is less useful in other contexts such as Middle Eastern countries, especially Israel. In fact, in this area, another definition seems to be more effective. Uri Davis visualized a difference between a passport citizenship (jinsiyya), that provides people with “the right to residence” in a specific territory of the state where they are citizens, and a democratic citizenship (muwatana), that recognizes the full access of a single individual to civil, political, social, and material resources of the state (Davis, 2000).

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2. Contextual Background Planning, policies fear of displacement.

Planning is a tool which could be used in a different ways, and not just to develop an area to urbanize it; it could be a transition between an urban and informal area such as East Jerusalem. Planning theorists translated the Israeli government’s aims and created the informality in East Jerusalem. If we looked on a bigger level of political, geographical practices within the city of Jerusalem, it will be found that the city is considered an ethnocratic city within an ethnocratic state. In Israel, Planning is perceived as a mediator between the power of control and space, which the regime of the Israeli government translates into plans, institutions, discourse, and spatial change. The understanding of gray spaces, as over the entire spectrum, has helped us to conceptualize two associated dynamics – whitening and blackening (Yiftachel, 2009b). These terms can be seen more clearly when analyzing the planning practices that have been implemented for over 46 years in Jerusalem and which created the two extreme sides of the spectrum between “whitening West Jerusalem and blackening the East”.

The city is still locked in a war for survival that serves to intensify all such images and notions. Examples are policies implemented to exclude Palestinians; long-term policies aimed to restrict the natural expansion of Palestinian neighbourhoods. Palestinians in East Jerusalem faced several problems such as finding alternative solutions for the housing demand outside the city, restrictions on mobility and movement, and losing the right to the city by not being able to enter and live back again in the city. Israeli short-term policies have an urgent effect on the ground by punishing Palestinians with demolishing their houses as a consequence of illegal building without permits, which was the result of Israeli long term policies. Palestinian communities, similarly, had to face being excluded Excluding Palestinian communities to be outside the Separation Wall, which, in other words, means outside Jerusalem. The feelings of fear and threat that Palestinians have had in Jerusalem, for over 46 years, could mount to death in demolishing their homes. To summarize, East Jerusalem is a gray city with two sides. Minorities are surviving to live in the city since only exclusive policies were implemented in East Jerusalem. The fear of displacement is the result of these policies.

3. Methods and research questions The basis for this research is exploratory, descriptive and explanatory in nature. As these types are not mutually exclusive, the research has been directed towards describing the phenomenon of Palestinians obtaining Israeli citizenship in East Jerusalem. The research examined the existing planning practices and policies in Jerusalem. This included an intensive literary review (citizenship theory, planning in gray cities, and the right to the city) and the analysis of the existing local and national policies in Jerusalem. The research is based on in-depth interviews focusing on: Palestinians who obtained the Israeli citizenship; Palestinians with permanent residency status and Israeli and Palestinian politicians, and analyzing legal documents related to Israeli citizenship in terms of right and obligation as a legal right and perceived on the ground.

The two main questions, in this context, are: What are the spatial urban impacts of Palestinians in Jerusalem obtaining the Israeli citizenship? What are the forms of inclusion and exclusion that result from Palestinians obtaining the Israeli citizenship in relation to the right of the city?

4. Main findings The research examines the hierarchy of the Israeli citizenship concept from a macro to a micro perspective in relation to the current situation in East Jerusalem. The hierarchy starts from state to city, on an individual level. The analysis was based on the privileges that the Israeli citizenship offers in terms of access to services, property (housing), and political power. Israeli Arabs (Palestinians 1948) have practiced the Israeli citizenship for over 67 years, so the research examined the perceived benefits of holding an Israeli citizenship in terms of

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access to basic services, property (housing), and political power (See figure 2, page 5). Jerusalemites with permanent residency statues did not use the only political power they have, which is voting in the municipality of Jerusalem elections. The results of Israeli planning policies in East Jerusalem created a disconnection between housing demand and offer, which is exactly what the Israeli policies aimed to achieve.

The solutions for Palestinians in East Jerusalem to fill the gap of housing needs was to move out of the city in the West Bank areas and to build there, or to build in East Jerusalem, without a building permit. This, however, represents another risk because of the house demolition policy. Building outside the city of Jerusalem in the West Bank for both Jerusalemites, with or without an Israeli citizenship, was the only solution to fill the housing demand. Palestinians who applied to or were thinking of applying for Israeli citizenship considered this step as a mere technical solution to lose the fear of displacement or losing the right to reside in the city.

Six individual cases represent the current conditions of Palestinians with different legal statuses, living inside, outside or in a dual life of the city with a variation of fear of displacement and losing the right to reside or enter the city. The individual reflection of obtaining the Israeli citizenship by residents of East Jerusalem is varied.

The research found that the new generation of Jerusalemites is thinking differently than elderly people about Israeli citizenship. Jerusalemites aged 18-45 think of applying for Israeli citizenship and most of them consider it a technical solution for not losing their right to the city of Jerusalem. Jerusalemites aged 45-65 or over do not think of applying for Israeli citizenship. They consider having an Israeli citizenship like choosing the Israeli side in the case of dividing the city. All ages of the sample mainly agreed that obtaining an Israeli citizenship is a kind of Israelization of East Jerusalem. Nowadays, between 15,000 – 20,000 of Jerusalemites have obtained full Israeli citizenship and the numbers are growing rapidly. These people are spreading inside and outside of Jerusalem’s municipal boundary with less fear of displacement than other Jerusalemites with permanent residency status. Jerusalemites who are living within the Jerusalem municipal boundary with only permanent residence status are facing the fear of being displaced out of the city to find affordable housing units outside the city. (See also figure 1.)

Figure 1: The rights of Israeli citizenship analysis and East Jerusalem residents’ solution Source: Author, 2014

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Figure 2: Analysis of Israeli citizenship (Legally and perceived) Source: Author, 2014

Conclusion Jerusalemites, as a minority in the city, have been living under the Israeli occupation for over 46 years, waiting for a solution. Israeli planning policies in Jerusalem for over 46 years are trying to control the demographic percentage as to become 30% of Palestinians (Arabs – Muslim and Christian) to 70% of Israeli (Jewish) in the city. The city of Jerusalem became a gray city with two sides of brightness and blackness. The result was the informality of building –closed enclaves in East Jerusalem neighbourhoods for Palestinians. The housing crisis in East Jerusalem is a result of the Israeli planning policies which have been there for over 46 years.

Displacement occurred for Jerusalemites to solve housing needs and demand by living outside the city in West Bank areas. The center of life policy means that Palestinian residents should continually prove that they are residents and physically live and work within Jerusalem’s municipality boundary. The Israeli citizenship was an individual technical solution to keep the right to the city and afford housing units for Jerusalemites. Jerusalemites are surviving to keep their right to the city, though the solution to keep their right, nowadays – the idea about Israeli citizenship within Jerusalemites – is changed. In the past, it was considered shameful to apply for the Israeli citizenship; today, it is not.

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Figure 3: Scenario; No further political solutions, urban implications of obtaining Israeli citizenship in the long-term vision Source: Author, 2014

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The scenario has no further political solutions for Jerusalem; Israeli citizenship is giving the Jerusalemites the right to reside in the city. The right to city of Jerusalem for Palestinians is to have the choice to either reside or not. Continuing to live in Jerusalem with a permanent residency status is no longer maintained the right to reside even for those who are actually living inside the boundary of Jerusalem’s municipality. Splitting one community is the result of offering Israeli citizenship which has been open since 1967 until today by the Israeli government. Jerusalemites with permanent residency are trying to afford to live inside the boundary but those with Israeli citizenship are not fighting anymore to physically live inside the city. No further political solution scenarios can be seen in the long term. Palestinians who obtained the Israeli citizenship will leave the city toward West Bank areas (outside the Separation Wall). These people will keep coming back to the city to get access to services such as health, social welfare, or to seek jobs in Israel. The actual living for Palestinians in Jerusalem will, significantly, decrease in this scenario. (see also figure 3).

References Unies, N. (2007). The Humanitarian Impact of the West Bank Barrier on Palestinian Communities east Jerusalem (pp.

1–23). Jerusalem. Retrieved from http://unispal.un.org/pdfs/BR_Update30July2007.pdf Yiftachel, O. (2009b). Theoretical Notes On `Gray Cities’: the Coming of Urban Apartheid? Planning Theory, 8(1), 88– 100. doi:10.1177/1473095208099300 Davis, U. (2000) Conceptions of Citizenship in the Middle East. State, Nation, and People, in Butenschon, N. Davis, U. and Hassassian, M. (ed.), 49-69. 13.

Reeskens, T. I. M., & Hooghe, M. (2010). Beyond the civic – ethnic dichotomy : investigating the structure of citizenship concepts across thirty-three countries, (Kohn 19)

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Heritage and Urban Conservation

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Understanding the Gap between Heritage Conservation and Local Development in Egypt Towards an Integrated Strategic Model for Pompey’s Pillar and the Catacombs Area in Alexandria Author: Mohamed Aniss Mohamed ElGamal Supervisor 1: Prof. Dr. Mohamed A. Salheen, Professor of Integrated Planning and Design - Ain Shams University, Egypt Supervisor 2: Vertr. Prof. Dr. Nina Gribat, Interim Professor of Int’l Urbanism - University of Stuttgart, Germany Supervisor 3: Dr. Hebatalla Abouelfadl, Associate Professor of Arch. & Urban Planning -Alexandria University, Egypt For decades, Egypt has been facing many challenges in the fields of heritage conservation and local development. These challenges continue to increase due to rapid urbanization in historical cities. It further indicates the incapacity of different stakeholders to deal with the complexity of such urban contexts. The main objective of the research is to understand the gap between development and conservation in Egypt and to develop an integrated strategy for both practices. In this regard, the relationship between them is thoroughly examined and linked to wider literature reviews. Afterwards, both practices are discussed in reference to a number of case studies in the Global South aiming to investigate the success of strategies applied. The research studies the gap in Egypt by exploring its historical background. The Egyptian administrative system that manages such contexts is reviewed. Subsequently, the thesis introduces the main case study in Alexandria, and provides profound analyses for it. Ultimately, an integrated strategic model for the main case study is proposed based on the examination of the Egyptian context and analyses of the case study area.

Keywords: Heritage conservation- Local development- Egypt- Pompey’s pillar and the Catacombs area- Alexandria.

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Introduction Nowadays, many urban fabrics in historical cities, especially in Global South, witness a salient conflict between development and conservation. Many heritage structures are surrounded by unplanned, deteriorated areas as a result of uncontrolled urbanization. Development and conservation are in an absolute conflict as the former aims to change while the latter tends to prevent or, at least, mitigate this change. The majority of international experiences throughout history prove that the overwhelming desire of development has always been stronger than arguments of conservation. This resulted in the degradation of heritage structures in historical cities as seldomly do both practices work in an integrated framework. Many scholars have been increasingly aware of the importance of developing an integrated framework dealing with the gap between both practices.

Consecutive Egyptian regimes have approached complicated contexts mentioned earlier either by maintaining monuments or upgrading deteriorated areas in their surroundings. Like many countries in the Global South, Egypt has faced many challenges dealing with the gap between heritage conservation and local development.

The lack of coordination between the different levels of government, the incapacity to involve different stakeholders, the weak public awareness of the community towards heritage significances as well as the lack of technical and financial resources are the main challenges that face the Egyptian government to bridge the gap and develop an integrated strategy dealing with complexity of such urban fabrics.

In cooperation with different stakeholders, national and local governments have the responsibility to do a fine balancing act, maintaining the value of heritage resources while simultaneously improving the quality of the life of local inhabitants. It is essential to develop an integrated strategy to overcome the gap between heritage conservation and local development in Egypt. Otherwise, archaeological sites are most likely to lose their significance, while areas in their surroundings would suffer more from physical and socioeconomic deterioration conditions.

•

The research touches on the following sub questions:

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What are the potentials available to overcome the gap?

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What are the challenges facing the countries of the Global South to overcome the gap?

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How did some governments of the Global South manage to develop integrated strategies to overcome the gap?

The research also attempts to answer the main critical questions: •

Why is there a gap between heritage conservation and local development in Egypt?

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How could a better policy be developed to overcome the gap in Egypt?

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How could an integrated strategic model be developed for the main case study area in Alexandria?

1. The context of ‘Pompey’s pillar’ and the ‘Catacombs’ case study area in Alexandria, Egypt The case study area, ‘Pompey’s pillar’ and the ‘Catacombs’, is located in the central zone of Alexandria, Egypt.

Like the majority of deteriorated areas in Egypt, the area is a mixture of unsafe and unplanned areas that lack basic services and suffer from many socioeconomic challenges. The area is dotted with two of the most visited archaeological sites in the city – ‘Pompey’s pillar’ and the ‘Catacombs’. Additionally, the area contains a lot of lesser-known historical buildings, including housing units, factories and warehouses which date back to the twenties. Nowadays, as a result of rapid urbanization and the absence of governmental superintendence, the area witnesses many illegal activities such as unlicensed constructions, demolitions and the unauthorized construction of additional floors in already-occupied buildings. Consequently, the area is characterized by its deteriorated urban settings. Many historical buildings are also threatened by illegal demolition activities. The

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area lacks any touristic services and the community lacks awareness towards the significance of both archaeological sites. As a result, the two sites are physically fenced and economically, socially and culturally segregated by means of contribution in the development of their surroundings. Although the area faces many challenges that menace its significance, it still has great potentials such as strong social cohesion, historical significance, active community and streets vitality. These potentials could help develop an integrated strategy for development and conservation. It is clear that, without rapid action, the area may, eventually, lose its significance.

2. The gap between conservation and development: The desire to preserve versus the desire to change complementary or conflicting processes?

Conflict, contradiction and challenge are the first words that come to mind when describing the relationship between conservation and development. While the former represents the desire to preserve, the latter is the desire to change. Although scholars have been increasingly aware of this challenge since the 1960s, this conflict has historical roots dating back to the industrial revolution. In the last six decades, the pressing challenge has been to initiate a dialogue in order to achieve an integrated framework. The examination of conceptual frameworks of both practices show that, despite the existing gap between conservation and development in theory and practice, there are potentials available to overcome such a gap and come up with an integrated strategy where the two approaches would work together in a complementary manner to deal with such contexts. The examination of evaluated trajectories of development and conservation shows that both practices have recently been enlarging their perspectives to encompass various fields and establish partnerships with different stakeholders that help create integrated strategies for heritage conservation and local development.

3. Success and failure of strategies applied in the Global South While the majority of cases in the Global South show the incapacity of national and local governments to deal with the complexity of urban fabrics of archaeological sites and deteriorated areas in juxtaposed position, few others have managed to demonstrate how different levels of government can play complementary roles in the cooperation with different stakeholders to overcome such challenges. Analyses of many case studies conclude that the main key factors of success are to: foster coordination among the different levels of governments; integrate heritage conservation within local development plans; foster spatial activities; increase financial resources; empower community participation, and initiate partnerships with the private sector, NGOs, civil entities as well as national and international organizations. Integrating heritage conservation as an essential part of local development plans is urgently needed to sustain the value of heritage resources in conjunction with maintaining the life of the surrounding community. Few strategies applied in the Global South enlighten the dark discouraging picture of today. These strategies have succeeded in achieving a balancing act between heritage conservation and local development. Such integrated strategies remain hindered by many challenges such as centralized governmental administrations, financial obstacles, the lack of management expertise as well as the lack of awareness towards heritage.

4. The gap between heritage conservation and local development in Egypt The examination of Egypt’s modern history shows that the gap between heritage conservation and local development dates back to Khedive Ismail’s regime (1863-1879). During their long history, starting from Ismail’s regime passing by the British occupation in 1882 and the revolution of 1952 down to the end of the twentieth century and beginning of the twenty-first century, the desire to develop has been overwhelming compared with conservation practices which have only focused on documenting old individual historical buildings, ignoring their surrounding urban fabric. Consequently, a great number of old buildings have been destroyed. In the last few decades, rapid urbanization, market forces and social transformations have radically changed the urban fabric of Egyptian cities and resulted in the formation of complicated urban contexts where archaeological sites

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and deteriorated areas are juxtaposed.

Nowadays, the Egyptian administrative system that manages these contexts on the different governmental levels is ineligible to deal with their complexity. As analyses show, the system is characterized by immoderate centralization, multiple authorities, bureaucracy as well as the incapacity of involving the community in the process of decision-making. Furthermore, multiple authorities lead to a dilution of responsibility, an extremely inefficient system and dissipation of national financial resources.

Many experiences in the Egyptian context reflect the fragile relationship between the different stakeholders involved in conservation and development schemes. Abo-Emira (Interview, 2014) stated that there is no integrated system which considers issues of both conservation and development. The clear conflict in roles is played by the different governmental entities which rarely seek to cooperate in narrowing down the distance between conservation and development practices caused in the formation of the complicated context where heritage resources are surrounded by deteriorated urban fabrics.

Between national authorities that propose ambitious plans, abstract concepts and regulations, which do not relate to the everyday life, and the local administration with its short-sighted agendas and its inability to implement them on the one hand, and civil society entities that are largely excluded from the decision making process, and local inhabitants who seek to cover their basic needs on the other hand, Egypt’s heritage struggles in the face of the overwhelming development aspiration. While governmental authorities argue that they control the built environment, on the ground, market forces and local residents are the key factors which shape the Egyptian urban fabric. Socioeconomic changes and a rapid real-estate market prove that they have a bigger impact on Egyptian cities than any development or conservation schemes prepared by authorities (Ibrahim, 2009).

Analyses show that, although there are many challenges that hinder the achievement of an integrated strategy for heritage conservation and local development in Egypt. Pilot projects carried out either by formal entities or international agencies show the possibility to recognize successful strategies. These pilot projects aim to create mutual benefit situations for different stakeholders to encourage them to build their future together. These analyses reflect the applicability of the key factors of success such as increasing financial resources, creating spatial activities as well as establishing partnerships with national and international agencies. Although pilot interventions also succeeded to achieve the other key factors, analyses show that these factors need regulatory changes in the long term to be recognized. The factors are: fostering coordination among different levels of government; integrating conservation within local development plans; empowering community participation, and strengthening cooperation with NGOs and youth initiatives. However, analyses show that, although successful pilot projects and interventions proved the possibility to achieve integrated strategies in Egypt, such actions are hampered by many challenges that threaten their sustainability since they are merely scattered attempts that are not embedded in the formal system.

Conclusion: Towards an integrated strategy for heritage conservation and local development in Egypt In a country like Egypt that suffers from many economic challenges, if conservation practices were to be recognized as a tool of development that fosters economic activities, not as an isolated, expensive development strategy, governments would, in turn, increase their financial resources. Although archaeological sites and deteriorated areas in juxtaposed contexts face many challenges that hinder the implementation of sustainable development plans, there are many opportunities to overcome these challenges, come up with integrated strategies and to learn from successful case studies in similar contexts. As examination of the Egyptian context has shown, Egypt has high potentials of development as well as many active entities and international agencies which are interested in participating in development projects. Analyses show that the main challenges lie in

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using the available resources in a sustainable framework as well as introducing negotiation and coordination processes between the different roles in which actors are involved. The analyses of formal interventions carried out by national and local authorities show that each stakeholder is blind and restricted about its agenda, the thing that hinders coordination between them. However, many pilot projects succeed to lead negotiation and coordination processes between these stakeholders and achieve outcomes that overweight any compromises.

Many examples introduced creative solutions to deal with these challenges and succeed in achieving integrated strategies, but the remaining challenge is to connect all such attempts.

The main objectives of the proposed strategy are, firstly, to upgrade urban settings of the area including heritage structures as well as areas in their surrounding and, secondly to develop the socioeconomic conditions of the community. The strategy also aims to integrate conservation within local development plans. In order to sustain the strategy’s outcomes and future actions of, the strategy aims to empower local institutions in parallel with physical and socioeconomic development. It also aims to establish partnerships with NGOs, the private sector and international organizations to increase financial resources and provide advanced technical support.

The strategy achieves its objectives through three approaches carried out in the short, middle and long terms.

The first is to initiate a series of kick-off actions “pilot interventions� that aim to create win-win situations between the different stakeholders in order to encourage them to participate in the project. The second is to connect and network successful pilot projects carried out by NGOs and youth initiatives, and further integrate them in the formal urban management system. In the long term, the third approach is to introduce regulatory changes on both the national and local levels. The strategy further proposes a decision-making process that shows complementary roles played by actors in the Egyptian context, thus achieving the main objectives of the strategy.

Therefore, the strategy does not propose a new process to achieve sustainable development, but rather proposes a process to foster and connect former successful attempts carried out in the Egyptian contexts aiming to solidify and enrich their outcomes. In the short, middle and long terms, the strategy introduces a delineation of how a better policy could be developed for heritage conservation and local development in Egypt through a step-by-step strategy. The strategy proposes different alternatives to achieve its objectives to provide variety in dealing with the accelerating, changing political, social and economic circumstances. The strategy introduces a solution based on opportunities available in the Egyptian context and the formal administration system, especially the 2014 Egyptian constitution, as well as lessons learnt from successful case studies in similar contexts. The integrated strategic model shows the applicability of the strategy in the Egyptian context and further illustrates potentials of recurrence. The strategy provides a toolbox of activities and recommendations for developers, planners and decision makers in dealing with archeological sites and deteriorated areas in juxtaposed contexts. It is worth noting that regulatory changes proposed by the strategy present a primary stage of recommendations and guidelines that require further research to study the mechanisms of achieving decentralization, empowering local units and civil society as well as foster coordination between the different authorities on the ground.

References Ibrahim, K., 2009. Extract from a Diary: Marginal notes on the soft dialectics of Historic Cairo. In: D. Singerman, ed. Cairo Contested: Governance, Urban space, and Global Modernity. Cairo: American University in Cairo press, pp. 235-267.

Abo-Emira, T., 2014 Interview: Understanding the gap between heritage conservation and local development (personal interview). 03.04.2014.

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Towards a Strategy for Regaining Cultural Identity in the Urban Reconstruction of the War-Ravaged City Centre of Homs, Syria Author: Sana Kassouha Supervisor 1: Prof. Dr. Ayman Ashour, Professor of Architecture and Urban Planning - Ain Shams University, Egypt Supervisor 2: Prof. Wolf Reuter, Professor of Urban Planning - University of Stuttgart, Germany Supervisor 3: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Yehya Mohamed Serag, Associate Professor of Urban and Regional Planning - Ain Shams University, Egypt This article focuses on the urban reconstruction of the war-damaged city centre of Homs in Syria, which was destroyed during the recent war (2011 - today). It presents an approach of reconstruction which extends beyond the reconstruction of the physical aspects with a special focus on the cultural identity. It, particularly, explores how the cultural identity interacts with and impacts post-conflict recovery processes, and how heritage can be used to assist in regenerating war-torn communities. This thesis suggests that heritage is an active process containing the meaning and values of the past, present and future, and how all this can influence the ways in which people recover and develop in the wake of the war trauma.

Keywords: Post-war reconstruction, cultural identity

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Introduction The major theatre of the Syrian conflict is predominantly urban. The urban warfare leaves cities divided, most notably Homs, the third largest Syrian city (4800 ha) (Kassouha, 2010, p32), with a pre-war population of almost 1.5 million, a population reflecting Syria’s general religious diversity. Homs has an ancient city dating back to the year 2300 B.C which was known in Roman times as ‘Emesa’. It is distinguished from other Syrian governorates by its important strategic location in the centre of Syria. It is a central ground transportation hub between major cities in Syria (Figure 1), and an industrial commercial city.

Homs is one of the most blighted cities in Syria, because of the war which started in April, 2011 and is still going on. The most affected areas are mostly in the city centre (Figure 2) – old neighbourhoods, some of the informal ones.

Figure 1: Homs’ location in the middle of Syria (left) Source: AlBaath, 2010 Figure 2: Master plan of Homs city, clarifying the city (right) Source: Barakat, 2007

1. The problem Some urban reconstruction approaches, such as those used in the city in the cases of Beirut and Paris, have largely overlooked the social and cultural characteristics of the affected communities, the restoration of national monuments as a revival of the cultural identity, and developmental issues, because of the urgency to rapidly re-house people. Top-down approaches, which take decisions and finance issues without the residents’ participation, often ignore the restoration of the continuity in people’s daily lives, and neglect the residents’ participation in shaping their built environment (Souheil Daoud El-Masri 1992). Consequently, the outcome of such strategies go beyond producing unfamiliar architecture, and certainly result in the abandonment of or the extensive alteration to the urban fabric; “There is ample evidence that such situations generally lead to people’s discontent towards the re-built environments” (Souheil Daoud El-Masri 1992).

2. Research questions How could the future reconstruction strategy of Homs city be best adapted to conserve the cultural identity of the war-affected community of Homs, in order to speed up its recovery and reconciliation and contribute to its development?

Sub questions: What are the important tangible and intangible heritage elements (monuments, historical buildings, churches, mosques, cafés, squares, streets, events….) in the city of Homs, which express the city’s

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identity and restore the continuity in people’s daily lives?

3. The objective Homs city centre is a combination of historic and non-historic city parts. It is in the residents’ memory and is easy to reach. All the main streets in the city lead to it. It includes the most important activities and places, which are used by the whole community, including banking, commercial, governmental and residential areas.

The objective of the research is to investigate the possible reconstruction strategies of Homs city to re-shape its cultural identity elements, with the help of alternative scenarios, to use reconstruction as a tool and symbol for the cultural recovery of the city, and to develop a clear urban vision for the future.

4. Research Methodology In order to understand the impact of cultural identity on post-conflict recovery, three types of methods are used in the thesis. Firstly, a literature review of theoretical terms related to the use of cultural identity in postwar urban reconstruction strategies. Secondly, a series of case studies (mainly Beirut and Mostar) concerning urban reconstruction, and analysing pros and cons, concerns and te benefits of the cultural identity during and after conflict, based on literature. Thirdly, closer investigation of the situation in Homs, and of people’s preferences using qualitative interviews and quantitative surveys, determination of the status which existed in the past (before the war), and reflection on examples, taking into account the specificity of the social, economical and cultural situation of the country, in order to produce the scenarios, leading to the final strategy.

The proposed research methodology is: 1. A literature review of: •

Theoretical terms related to the use of cultural identity in post-war urban reconstruction strategies.

•

Case studies (mainly Beirut and Mostar) concerning urban reconstruction, analysing pros and cons, concerns and the benefits of the cultural identity during and after conflict, based on literature.

2. Closer investigation of the Homs situation: •

History of the urban development of Homs city.

•

Homs city centre before 2011.

•

Homs city centre in the current situation after war.

3. Setting a post-conflict development vision and strategy for Homs city centre using: •

Qualitative interviews and quantitative surveys about people’s preferences.

•

A comparison of 3 scenarios of urban reconstruction: Reconstruction strategy, Renovation strategy, Rebuilding strategy

4.1 A glimpse at the deficiencies in the relevant policies and practices of cultural identity after war From the literature review, cultural identity (heritage) is an integral and essential component of a holistic approach to post-war reconstruction, and its recovery should be based on a clear vision of future recovery scenarios as seen by local groups as much as by external actors (Stanley-Price 2005, p55).

The protection and recovery of cultural heritage has received a little attention, while internationally led post war reconstruction has, constantly, grown in terms of global relevance and available resources. ICCROM FORUM, held in October 2005, focused on frequent deficiencies and formulates nine critical lessons which aim

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to advance academic discourse and act as guidance for good practice. These lessons emphasise the need for: •

A shared vision of recovery between the different groups;

•

the integration of cultural heritage into the wider physical, economic and social responses – sustained political and financial support;

•

the capacity development of local people and institutions;

•

the active participation of indigenous actors in the design and implementation of recovery – the recognition of the complementary relationships between replacement and conservation approaches;

•

the prioritisation of quality over the speed of recovery;

•

more practical ways to implement conservation codes and legislations; and

•

the appreciation of belief and religion within post-war societies.

For example, Mostar is an illustration of the good conservation and the after-reconstruction process between 1998 and 2004 where the Old City was inscribed on the World Heritage list in 2005. The international community, which worked in Mostar, was short-sighted, over-reliable on tourism, and has failed to rebuild other sectors of the economy such as industry. This has left many city residents, especially the youth, unemployed as well as led to the lack of capacity-building of existing institutions and professionals.

Beirut city is also another example where the reconstruction of the city centre was headed by Solidere, a private real estate company established by special legislation in 1994. It didn’t care about the cultural identity of the historical city, or the social reconciliation. Beirut had a vertical disintegration that led to a widening gap between the rich and the poor, spatially mirrored by the contrast in the developments of Beirut’s Central District, compared to most parts of the city’s hinterland. Reconstruction strategy, mostly, cares about the economic development. In both cases, the strategy did not achieve the desired goal. These lessons suggested here are applicable to other comparable war-torn societies.

4.2 The important elements in the city of Homs, which express the city’s cultural identity

Figure 3: Suggested elements to reconstruct; they represent Homs’ cultural identity Source: Author

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Depending on Lynch’s five city elements, the criteria of the different priorities of Homs’ cultural identity and the survey conducted of popular opinions; these elements (Figure 3) can be mapped and motioned as follows: •

The main commercial, administrative and touristic street (Shoukri Al-kouatli); then the new and old clock squares;

•

Then the Al-Hamidia commercial street, with the Old Market streets;

•

Then the touristic axes with touristic buildings, restaurants, historical mosques and churches;

•

Then the urban characteristics of the residential Old City;

•

Homs’ historical castle.

The historical, and other important elements which possess cultural value and, physically, represent the identity of Homs, are: Street Shoukry Alkwatly street

Squares New Clock Square (Shoukry Al-kwatly), built 1958 Old Clock Square (Martyrs), built 1923

Markets The Old Market, built 1880

Buildings

Citadel

Ibn Al-Walid Mosque, built 625, rebuilt in early 1900s

Homs Citadel, built 2300 B.C

Om Al-Zinnar Church, built 52 AD Al-Nouri and Al-Kabir Mosque, built 1129 Mar Elian Church, built 451 Al-Arbein Cathedral, built 1261 Al-Zahrawi Palace, built 1200s

Table 1: Symbols of cultural identity in Homs city Source: Author

4.3 Setting a post-conflict development vision and strategy for Homs city Based on the theoretical study, international cases, interviews, and surveys, three scenarios for reconstruction will be proposed for comparison. The scenarios should take the following items into consideration: culture, values and identity; economic feasibility and funding resources; social conditions; actors (stakeholder); and the local participation mechanism. The following (Figure 4) shows the items involved and their limitations:

Figure 4: The limitations of urban reconstruction strategy in the thesis Source: Author

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After comparing the pros and cons of the three scenarios, in order to determine and develop the preferable option, the next is the proposed strategy: The proposed strategy: Development of the Second Scenario Strategy description: 1. Restoring and renovating the important elements mentioned before, including the Old City’s historic buildings. It is being documented in the same way as before, but with fewer architectural details.

2. Developing tourist-oriented pedestrian routes that connect all important areas of archaeological and architectural heritage (including old markets, religious, historic, architectural, archaeological and cultural landmarks) in order to revitalise the old district and other areas that have a social value such as public squares, cafes, etc.

3. Furthermore, the city centre infrastructure has to be renewed, especially the main surrounding streets, while destructed areas have to be completely rebuilt and reconstructed from scratch.

4. The architectural and urban fabric characteristic of Homs’ old city, should be clear in these reconstructed residential areas (such as shadowing elements, houses with courtyards, small windows overlooking streets, or white and black stones).

5. This could be achieved through local authorities in cooperation with local investors and other actors, providing their residents with local investing benefits and, at the same time, creating job and labour market opportunities.

6. The strategy could be funded by the revenues of re-exporting Homs’ oil, as well as by international and local donors such as UNESCO. This proposed scenario has many pros with respect to cultural identity but is imbedded in the content of other factors. It is based on the following: • On a social level, it decreases the social isolation of the area through developing tourist-oriented pedestrian connectivity, which contributes to the well-being and integration of the local community within the old district of Homs’ city centre. The centre has an important role in providing easy access to most necessary and common urban services in addition to reviving the city’s life and soul to how it was in the past. All categories of residents express nostalgia for this region, in addition to a need for jobs. This will help them to forget what they have experienced of sorrow and damage.

On an urban level, it preserves the urban and architectural characteristics of the city; with adaptive re-use of historic buildings and monuments to serve as historical and war museums, etc. In order to prevent planning failures identified by previous studies and increase social integration, the development of the city centre should be able to accommodate all necessary urban services such as administrative buildings, banks, cinemas, cultural and entertainment parks, etc. Nevertheless, property owners have the right to keep or sell their share (interest) as they wish or even move to new properties elsewhere. On an economic level, it is a win-win scenario as it creates job opportunities in the public and private sectors and promotes a public-private partnership. On the one hand, the city centre plays a major role in community development and redevelopment by creating jobs for local residents. On the other hand, it will become a tourist attraction that will attract visitors, both nationally and internationally, revenues from the retail activities of the traditional markets, and tourism-related businesses. Actors (new actors) – national NGOs were previously active in other domains such as: the tourism industry; churches and religious networks; universities and school groups, charities such as the Red Cross and Red Crescent societies; chambers of commerce; and syndicates of engineers.

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Conclusion The existence of tangible and intangible heritage elements, which express the city of Homs’ cultural identity, will play an important role in restoring the continuity in people’s daily lives after the current war. In fact, this was found after arranging these elements based on specific criteria. How could the future reconstruction strategy of Homs city be best adapted to conserve the cultural identity of the war-affected community of Homs in order to speed up its recovery and reconciliation and contribute to its development? This requires taking into account several recommendations: •

The sensitisation of all layers of society to the role of these elements.

•

Encourage the community to participate in the reconstruction process in order to maintain the privacy of the city’s population, as they are the only ones who are able to understand these properties.

•

Conducting specialised classes to teach the fundamentals and techniques of reconstruction in order to produce teams and qualified experts.

•

The participation of all members of the community in the reconstruction process, which is an important part of the process of the re-integration of society. This happens by creating job opportunities that force the different categories to meet again and work together in places to which significant memories are attached for all.

•

To develop a specialised museum dedicated to the events of the war, allowing the whole community to express its memories of what they lost during the war, as well as express their feelings.

Undeniably, this opportunity of urban reconstruction in Homs is a complex matter with many difficulties. The solution requires comprehensive local planning, management and implementation in order to achieve optimal and effective results. Reconstruction should be about more than rebuilding houses and buildings. It should be associated with economic development, political compromise, and social measures for the healing of misery.

This is the most difficult task because it is easier to reconstruct buildings than to reconstruct a society.

References Daoud, S, 1992, Reconstruction after disaster a study of war-damaged villages in Lebanon the case of Al-Burjain, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK Kassouha, S, 2010, Concepts of urban sustainability in planning modern residential areas in Syrian cities (New Homs as a case study), Master thesis p.32, supervisor Zouhair J. faculty of architecture, Al-Baath university Lynch, K, 1960 , The Image of the City, Cambridge Massachussettes Stanley-Price, N., 2005, p55, Cultural Heritage in Post-war Recovery, Rome, Italy

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Heritage of Modernity Urban Space and Politics of Transition in Contemporary Cairo (1952-2011) Author: Mahy Mourad Supervisor 1: Prof. Dr. Mohamed A. Salheen, Professor of Integrated Planning and Design - Ain Shams University, Egypt Supervisor 2: Vertr. Prof. Dr. Nina Gribat, Interim Professor of Int’l Urbanism - University of Stuttgart, Germany At the turn of the 21st century, Cairo’s modern spaces are continuously shaped and reshaped according to the shifting political powers, economic regimes and social dynamics. In 1974, Henry Lefebvre has urged us to shift our attention from the ‘things in space’ to the actual ‘production of space’. This article aims to trace the spatial manifestations of the shifting political-economic regimes on the physically built environment through focusing on aesthetic representations. Under the recent acts of neoliberalism, new developments are consuming the city’s modern heritage. However, the architecture and urban aesthetics of belle epoch are rediscovered and appreciated. In this article, the significance of Cairo’s modern heritage is presented, conceived at the outset of the 20th century, through focusing on one of Cairo’s most remarkable districts – Heliopolis. Urged by the vast deterioration of the city’s heritage caused by post-revolution chaos and exceptional cases of lawlessness after 2011, the recent interest and rediscovery of Cairo’s modern heritage was intensified by new awareness evolving in the community as a result of the activation of local initiatives led by Egyptians, reviving interest in modern heritage and remembering the birth of urban modernity.

Keywords: transformation, spatial manifestations, political economic regimes, neoliberalism, urbanism, mod-

ern heritage, production of space, architecture representation, aesthetics.

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Introduction 2011 saw the 59th anniversary of the 1952 Egyptian revolution. More than half a century has passed since the 23rd of July 1952 when a group of army officers surrounded the Abdine Palace demanding the King’s abdication. In the time span of sixty years, the political regime has changed three times – from a parliamentary monarchy under British mandate, to state socialism with capitalist overtones, to a completely open market economy. Drawing on extensive literature reviews and other sources, such as interviews with Cairo-based heritage initiatives (‘Save Cairo’ and ‘HHI’), as well as site-visits, this essay aims to draw a picture of the evolution of modern aesthetics and its continuous shifting perception. In order to trace the aesthetic representations, this article questions the notion of the recognition of aesthetics that dates back to an era of foreign hegemony (belle epoch), known as ‘national heritage’, and the continuous shifting perception of the belle epoch aesthetics through the different regimes. Further, it questions the role of the community and the ordinary practitioners (bottom-up) in preserving heritage. The three following sections respond to the three posed questions respectively.

1. Tradition and Modernity By the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century, modern urban developments in Egypt have received some attention which was not regarded as an ‘authentic’ representation of Egyptian architecture. This section discusses the relevance of this notion by drawing a picture of the process of making the belle epoch aesthetics at the outset of the twentieth century during the era of the British mandate, through focusing on Heliopolis, a modern urbanization founded in 1905 as a new satellite city near Cairo. Between 1840 and 1940, the colonial ambitions of two of the great world powers – France and England – meant that a number of new towns were found during this era (A. Loo 2010). In Egypt, the competition was clear between these two powers, with the two suburbs built during the early 20th century. Maadi was founded by Sir Ernest Cassel (Anglo Saxon) and Heliopolis by Edward Empain (Franco-Belgian), who happen to be the same two engineers who had worked on the subways in London and Paris respectively. At the outset of the twentieth century, companies with European capitals, such as the Heliopolis Company, have flourished in Egypt.

Cairo’s modern heritage is at the center of a double debate; one that describes its architecture as a non-authentic representation of ‘Egyptian’ architecture, while, on the other hand, being regarded as part of Egypt’s national heritage. Late nineteenth and early twentieth-century buildings and sites in Cairo that date back to an era of foreign hegemony are now labeled ‘Cairo’s belle epoch’. They are architecture and urban designs that possess a high aesthetical value, with eclectic styles. European architects have introduced European design concepts adapted in decorative vocabulary and architectural styles, inspired by Islamic and Arabic architectural styles, desired by the country’s elites and residing foreigners, and which later spread throughout society through the middle classes. In Heliopolis, this process of ‘orientalism’ has produced localized spaces (Fig.02) that create a unique form of ‘cultural syncretism’ (A. Loo 2010, p. 165). This explains the fact that, among the cities of the Arab world, Cairo represents an early case of strong expansion and radical transformation in urban space that did not coincide with European colonization (Volait & Nasr, 2003). Although the urban model of Heliopolis was decidedly foreign, represented in the ‘garden city’ planning concept and the plans of the housing typologies, they were still not colonial. The governing feature of colonial town planning had always been the differentiation of ‘European’ and ‘native’ poles by careful ‘zoning’, with the two poles complementing each other; this, however, was not the case in the plans for Heliopolis (Ilbert 1985). The highly eclectic aesthetics represented an identity that is still obvious today, even to the visitor who knows nothing of the origins, and can distinguish Heliopolis from any other district in Cairo. This undoubtedly ‘colonial appearance’ of the city, was able to set off a process of integration, eventually becoming “a quarter of Cairo, no less Egyptian than the others” (Ilbert, 1985, p. 37).

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The penetration of European urban planning models in Cairo, particularly during the era of British mandate, came about by local actors. Cairo’s Belle epoch spaces have been identified with ‘colonizers’, but also with the presence and identification of Egyptian elites and middle classes, before and after the colonial period (El Kadi & ElKerdany, 2006). Heliopolis gave many residents of Cairo access to modern conveniences, in modern Arabic style of architecture that is inspired by local traditions, in the same time meets the modern needs.

“After all, Egypt was not a colony, and more importantly, Heliopolis was not a colonial town.” (Ilbert, 1985, p.37)

Figure 1: Building in Heliopolis.

Source: (Dobrowolska 2006)

2. Politics and Power The process of making the belle epoch aesthetics during the era of foreign hegemony was closely integrated in the fabric of Cairo and successfully grafted onto the Egyptian culture and tradition. By the rise of nationalism and the 1952 revolution, the aesthetics of the ‘colonial’ era were ignored and perceived as irrelevant to the national character of a recently independent country – Egypt. This section discusses the nationally-driven reorientations of Cairo’s developments brought about by Nasser’s regime (1956-1970) through focusing on the process of coping with the socialist regime in Heliopolis; and further exploring the consuming of the heritage under liberal and neoliberal states.

During the 1950s, Cairo’s developments were influenced by two main aspects – the new socialist regime proposed by Nasser after the 1952 revolution, and the demographic growth of Cairo. The architecture and urban representations during this era were characterized by a high state of intervention, which had resulted in the nationalization of the private companies as well as the necessary infrastructure and having them managed by the state. The nationalization of the Heliopolis Company after the revolution has marked the beginning of the transformation in Heliopolis. Nasser’s attempt to modernize Egypt was manifested through a nationalistic movement that has perceived the belle epoch aesthetics as irrelevant to the national character of Egypt. Attempts to erase the traces of monarchy and colonialism became visible in the reuse of belle epoch’s palaces and villas that had been confiscated from the fallen aristocracy as public schools. Poorly maintained for several decades, these buildings with a high aesthetic value were damaged by the misuse of the public. The new regime’s set of alterations have also included changing the names of important urban landmarks and arteries in Cairo (Alsayyad, 2011). The set of street renaming appeared in Heliopolis, reflecting Nasser’s attempts to erase the names and histories of the monarch and colonialism. During the 1960s, aesthetic control was firmly wielded by the state; the aesthetics representation have witnessed the proliferation of the functional designs and reflected a socialist mode of production that reshaped the character of the built environment. In Heliopolis, as in Cairo, the rise of modernist architecture has started since the 1940s, driven by the rise of the powerful national movement that led to the unilateral declaration of independence by the British in 1922. However, it was only with Nasser’s building program that a truly national architectural culture emerged (Fig.01). The modern socialist designs, which prevailed in Nasr city, and the new satellite city established in 1959 by a presidential decree, have made their appearance in Heliopolis after the revolution. Featuring similar building masses, in many cases, and expressing monotonous frontage and uniform proportions, facades have possessed clear lines with modular repetitive patterns and no ornamentations. Nevertheless, the modernism movement in Egypt has also produced a nationally driven modern aesthetic practice by local architects – who were offered a considerable

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chance by Nasser’s socialism to realize their ideas through Egypt’s public housing program – which is also worthy of appreciation and up keeping.

Anwar al-Sadat (1970-1981) and Hosni Mubarak (1981-2011) reversed Nasser’s economic and political orientation. In 1974, the ‘Open Door’ economic policy — also called ‘Infitah’ — was introduced by Sadat. During this era, Cairo has witnessed chaotic construction developments that were consuming its modern heritage. In Heliopolis, the disfigurement of the original facades started during Sadat’s era. Driven by the sharp increase of the land prices during this era, the low-rise single-family houses of architectural value were torn down in order to be replaced by high-rise buildings that generate more revenue. However, this era has also witnessed a counter movement that appreciates the aesthetics of the belle epoch. The policy of ‘openness’ proposed by Sadat has produced a new architecture typology that has emerged, featuring eclectic aesthetics that echoes, to a large extent, a renewed interest in traditional architecture, rebelling the functionalist aesthetics forms; known as post-modernism. Postmodern facades are attached to the aesthetics of the belle epoch; they have shown in Heliopolis, as in Cairo, throughout the nineties, leading to the revival of traditional forms.

3. Safeguarding a ‘New’ Heritage?

The notion of heritage in Egypt was commonly related to the Pharaoh, or Islamic and Coptic heritage of the medieval city. Since the late 1980s, a conservatory concern was broadly expressed to the belle epoch architecture, belonging to modern Egypt (1850-1950). This section explores the articulations of the recent acts of reclaiming the modern heritage that were evoked in Cairo, particularly after 2011.

The nostalgia and interest in the modern heritage, expressed under the neoliberal state (discussed in the previous section), has particularly proliferated after the earthquake that hit Egypt in 1992; when some classified historical monuments were considerably damaged (EL Kadi, 2005). On the legislative level, this interest was expressed when six decrees were issued, between 1993 and 1998, that prohibited the demolition or transformation of buildings of a great historical or architectural value, and further extended to ‘certain buildings of a remarkable architectural style’. However, most of the decrees are considered with the external situation of the buildings, but nothing has been done yet to safeguard them as a whole.

In 2011, the revolution in Egypt has opened the door for an alternative mode of practice, comprised of planners and scholars committed to working with local inhabitants to upgrade their communities. Driven by the fastpaced devastation of the city’s heritage and the beginning of the demolitions that have contributed in the disappearance of Cairo’s heritage memory – due to the exceptional cases of lawlessness in all proliferated aspects of life– civil society heritage initiatives have been much activated in the city. This series of initiatives, which act as a catalytic effect in the community, are particularly revealing of a sociocultural change linked to the desire for the reclaiming and appropriating Cairo’s built environment. There have also been noticed efforts during the past few years in listing buildings such as the one by CULTNAT1 in 2006. In Heliopolis, as it has since been in Cairo after 2011, the proliferation of the ‘informal’, due to the absence of the law enforcement, was deeply affecting the heritage. Represented in façade’s encroachments, the illegal increase of heights, and further fast demolitions of old buildings with legal permits (buildings that were not listed or, in some cases, delisted and then demolished) which revealed incompetence or lack of interest from the government to protect the heritage. However, on the other hand, there was also an opposing movement brought about; one of resistance, of reclaiming, expressed in the above-mentioned activation of the community. There has been a particular initiative concerned with the heritage of Heliopolis that emerged after the 2011 revolution. The ‘Heliopolis Heritage Initiative’ (HHI) is mainly interested in the urban built environment of Heliopolis and its surroundings. The activities of the HHI group ranged from silent protests and guided community tours to introductory events to the community. Other minor groups, reporting heritage violations, have also emerged in Heliopolis, in addition to non-profit organizations platforms that seek to strengthen the sense of community between practition-

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ers, academics and students of architecture and urbanism such as ‘Megawra’, Built Environment Collective; and ‘Rasheed 22’, the co-working space.

Although the impact of such groups is not yet quite obvious on the physical built environment, with the exception of minor cases where some illegal encroachments were removed after being reported2, these groups currently hold a critically important role in this transitional moment, comprised in their roles as ‘disturbers’ in the community, making the society aware by casting light on of the valuable treasures in the city. On the other hand, they hold a significant role in exerting pressure on governmental institutions to enforce the law and protect the heritage. Eventually, such groups will have an active role in reshaping the urban space and reclaiming the modern heritage. In 2013, a coalition comprised of several initiatives interested in heritage has submitted to the constitutional assembly (2013) an amendment to protect the built heritage of the so-called ‘modern’ era to the contemporary era, and not only ancient Egyptian, Islamic or Coptic heritage. After lobbying for these amendments from the coalition, for the first time in the Egyptian constitution, there exists an article listing all these eras (HHI 2014). Heliopolis is a contested space in the middle of a multi-faceted conflict between competing interests; the future of Heliopolis’s heritage in the coming years is indeed very much dependent on the tensions that currently exist between the active groups concerned with heritage, and all of their opponents – contractors, developers and sometimes governmental institutions with their lack of interest in protecting the heritage.

Conclusion In Cairo’s modern history, a great deal of emphasis is placed on key political events as having direct impact on aesthetics and, thus, the process of shaping the physical built environment. With the aim of tracing the evolution of modern aesthetics (Fig.03) and its continuous shifting perception, conceived during an era of foreign mandate, forgotten by the rise of nationalism, further consumed by acts of neoliberalism and recently being reclaimed, this article has presented the significance of Cairo’s modern urbanizations at the outset of the 20th century through focusing on one of its remarkable modern areas.

Heliopolis is a modern district that is reflective to the contemporary history of Egypt, starting from the origin, when the penetration of European planning influences were successfully grafted onto the Egyptian culture and tradition through a highly eclectic aesthetical style to the transformation to modern functionalist aesthetics under the socialist state and the appearance of post-modernism styles during liberal and neoliberal states. Today, Heliopolis is a neighborhood that also has its own community initiative, calling for preserving its valuable heritage. However, in order for such initiative approaches to succeed and become more effective, they ought to align their efforts with state government frameworks, and further extend their positive effects all over country. Moreover, they should seek to form a collation or manage a sort of network with other similar initiatives.

Equally important is the role of Egypt’s heritage and cultural institutions – to recognize and protect Egypt’s modernist heritage and to support such community initiatives despite the fact that the role of such initiatives is currently focused on community awareness activities – teams of researchers and volunteers are conducting surveys, documenting buildings and archiving photos – which, eventually, might find solutions for the research challenges in the case of cities such as Cairo where long-term quantitative data is not always available.

Egypt’s modern heritage, a remarkable phase of creativity, was not rediscovered by international institutions but rather by new community awareness that is created by the active local initiatives lead by Egyptians, reviving their urban modernity. Egypt never had a UNESCO World Heritage site3 from the twentieth century, and perhaps, it never will, yet it is now up to Egyptian planners, researchers, activists and communities to safeguard a heritage which can, according to Galila El Kadi (2005), Research Director at IRD4, contribute to “the construction of an identity common to all the people of the Mediterranean basin.”

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Figure 2: Timeline representing the shift inthe production of architecture aesthetics in Heliopolis.

Source: Adapted by the Author, 2014.

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Endnotes 1. CULTNAT ‘The Center for Documentation of Cultural and Natural Heritage’ 2. In June 2014, an initiative in Heliopolis – ‘Heliopolis Heritage Initiative (HHI)’ – has succeeded in removing a billboard encroachment from a heritage building in Korba after reporting it (HHI, 2014).

3. The historic center of Cairo was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1980 (after extending the notion of heritage to the rehabilitation of urban fabric that span pre-history up until 1879) 4. (IRD) Research Institute for Development

References Alsayyad, N. (2011). Cairo Histories of a City.

EL Kadi, G. (2005). Modern Heritage in Cairo : history and current outlooks, 57(225), 129–136.

El Kadi & ElKerdany, (2006). “Belle-époque Cairo- the politics of refurbishing downtown Cairo” in Cairo Cosmopolitan: Politics, Culture and Urban space in the new globalized Middle East, p. 345-368. 2006.

Ilbert, R. (1985). Heliopolis: Colonial Enterprise and Town Planning Success?

Volait, M., & Nasr, J. (2003). Making Cairo Modern. In Urbanism: Imported or Exported? John Wiley and Sons Ltd. (HHI, 2014) (HHI, 2014) The Heliopolis Heritage Initiative, [Online] Available at: https://www.facebook.com/HeliopolisHeritageInitiative [accessed on July2014] Dobrowolska, A., 2006. Heliopolis Rebirth of the City of the Sun, The American University in Cairo Press.

Loo, A., 2010. Anne Van Loo. “From Oasis to City” in Van Loo, A. & Bruwier, M.-C., 2010. Heliopolis, Brussels

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Development of Peripheral Settlements

Source: Author

Shalatin (Egypt): Between Urbanism and Nomadism Author: Mohamed Mahrous Supervisor 1: Prof. Dr. Youhansen Yehya Eid, Professor of Urban Planning - Ain Shams University, Egypt Supervisor 2: Prof. Antje Stokman, Professor of Landscape Planning and Ecology - University of Stuttgart, Germany Supervisor 3: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Yehya Serag, Associate Prof. of Urban & Regional Planning - Ain Shams University, Egypt Shalatin is one of the peripheral and isolated human settlements in Egypt. However, the State has been recently applying different Sedentarization strategies targeting the Bedouin population in the region, and attracting out-migrants from the Nile valley. Thus, this transformation towards city urbanization has resulted in inconsistent urban growth, negligence of inhabitants’ spatial needs, and the discard of cultural diversity and ecological context. Hence, this research aims at investigating the city growth and urbanization of Shalatin, and evaluating the associated socio-ecological transformation. In this respect, three methods were carried out in this research. Firstly, reviewing literature, publications and official documents were used as means to understand more about the Egyptian Nomads and analyze urban approaches adopted by authorities.

Secondly, field visits and interviews have been conducted by the researcher in the city of Shalatin and the adjoining regions in the Red Sea, and Upper Egypt; to track the on ground socio-ecological and spatial factors. Afterwards, collected data is visualized through tracing and analyzing the city maps; to compare the different urban patterns formed by inhabitants.

Eventually, the research achieves a set of key findings and recommendations promoting the distinctiveness of Shalatin in which the self-built Bedouin settlements reflect a long preserved cultural identity that doesn’t need to be excluded through any future urbanization steps.

Keywords: Shalatin, Sedentarization, Nomadism, Urbanism, Socio-Ecological, Socio-Spatial, Bedouins, Outmigrants

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Introduction Remote desert settlements in Egypt are usually inhabited by Bedouin tribes, with different spatial needs, in their urban context than the other high density settlements of the Nile Valley. Hence, the Egyptian State has been revealing a strategic interest towards the sedentarization of these Nomad groups living within such remote peripheries. This interest rises from the important role that these Nomad groups could play in political disputes threatening Egypt’s sovereignty over its land. In this respect, this research is mainly concerned with analyzing the urban growth of the city of Shalatin located within proximity to the disputable southeastern borders of the ‘Halayeb’ triangle. Hence, the research demonstrates the exceptionality of the city to monitor the ongoing urban transformation from Nomadism to Urbanism. Thus, this research examines the settlements of both indigenous Bedouins and the Nile Valley’s out-migrants in the city of Shalatin in the light of: 1. Governmental policies and urban development interventions.

2. Correlations and conflicts with the Nile Valley’s Out-migrants.

3. Urbanization behavior initiated by the community (self-made expansions, whether formal or informal).

4. Socio-Ecological influences on the city’s harmonization and development.

Consequently, the following sections of the research attempt to figure out how to integrate the socio-ecological aspects in the urban development of Shalatin.

Figure 1: Cause-effect relationships between community influences and inconsistent urban form.

Source: Author

1. Egyptian Bedouins: Identity and Sedentarization A-Theoretical Background: Nomad is defined as “a member of a group who has no fixed residency but move from place to place usually seasonally within a well defined territory” (Merriam-Webster). On the other hand, nomads’ populations are having recent urban transformations towards sedentism, sometimes known as “Sedentariness”. Sedentism is commonly expressed in the evolutionary anthropology and archaeology as ‘a term applied to the transition from a nomadic lifestyle to a society which remains in one place permanently’ (Hirst, 2007).

B- Egyptian Context: In Egypt, the fertile narrow valley of the Nile River transversely divides the rest of the land into two vast deserts – the Eastern Desert which is excessively arid with Rocky Mountains, and the West-

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ern Desert which is also arid but with a group of dispersed oases. Such a natural contrast between the valley and the desert affected different groups of inhabitants socially, economically, and the way they set up their urban settlements, (Awad, 1954). Therefore, the gradual assimilation process for a nomad, who is used to roam the desert and practiced their traditional flock herding to be a completely sedentarized citizen, undergoes three phases and four stages in which the inhabitants are integrated within other communities, whether by the Nile Valley or elsewhere (Awad, 1970). It is worth mentioning that the state’s implemented projects in stabilizing the nomadic population of the Western Desert succeeded, to a great extent, towards Bedouins’ sedentarization, such as ‘Wadi Al-Natrun’ which is an official sedentarization project targeting Bedouins in the 50’s. Nevertheless, the distinctive social structure of the indigenous population was negatively affected. Moreover, the herding economic activities have, largely, been deteriorated, whereas one of the best rangelands in Egypt was lost.

Accordingly, it was obvious that the State has always excluded its special characteristics in favor of strategic political or economic reasons in which the Bedouin population was targeted on similar basis to the Nile-Valley ones. Consequently, many important aspects were ignored such as: the Bedouins’ spatial relations, social fabrics, and Pastoralism activities that are strongly attached to their cultural heritage, which is further analyzed in the case of Shalatin.

Figure 2: Main nomadic, semi-nomadic and sedentarization locations for Bedouins.

Source: Awad (1970), Author

2. Traditional Living System in Shalatin The long isolated status of the ‘Beja’ Tribes from having direct contact with the dominant society in the Nile Valley has contributed to the well preservation of their cultural and social exclusivity. Their physical remoteness was also responsible for the disinterest of the official governance systems in applying any changes to the Bedouins’ living systems or dynamics, which remained traditional for a long period. However, the Bedouins’ movement in Shalatin and the southeastern periphery went through different stages of evolution that accompanied the recently introduced official resettlement plans.

Hence, this research summarizes such a process into three main stages: pure nomadic status, semi-nomadic, and lately, sedentarized populations (Awad, 1970) that still maintain, to some extent, their nomadic behaviors (Al Badawy, 1998). For each of the previous stages, remarkable changes occurred to the Bedouin settlement architecture and clustering criteria. It is notable, also, that Bedouins’ self-made settlements in the different stages was greatly influenced and connected to both the ecological context and the well-respected socio-tribal structure. The inter-connectivity between shelter, nature and social grouping is responsible for shaping Bedouin settlements in Shalatin. In the same respect, Bedouins altered their economical activities to

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the change of their movement schemes. Pastoralism, that is considered as the spine of tribal socio-economic systems, was lately combined with secured governmental jobs and trading opportunities. Currently, Pastoralism is still active inside the city of Shalatin even after the full sedentarization of many Bedouins, which refers to social and cultural roots along with the economic importance (Badawey, 1993).

3. Urbanization of Shalatin The historical background of Shalatin, and its surrounding peripheries, explains the real motivation behind the State’s presence for urban development. Political disputes with the Sudan over the ‘Halayeb’ triangle was the main cause behind grabbing the attention of Egyptian authorities to the area (Abdel-Hakim, 1998). The State interest in the development of Shalatin into a main urban center was tangibly seen in different stages. These development procedures started by declaring Shalatin to be a city and included a provision of basic urban and social services, and housing projects targeting both Bedouins and out-migrants (Al Badawy, 1998). It is worth noting that the official approach dealt with Bedouins’ housing on an individual basis and neglected any social or tribal relations in the distribution of the core housing units. Moreover, traditional ecological relations between the different Bedouin settlements were also excluded from the city’s urban form. However, some of the planned housing projects represented an attempt by the government to offer settlements with similar characteristics to their traditional shelters. The second effective ethnic population in Shalatin is the Nile Valley’s out-migrants who started to flee to Shalatin in 1996. New settlers could be divided into two groups – commuters with high education occupying official positions, and labor migrants mainly coming from Upper Egypt and working in trade and the construction industry.

It becomes more obvious that the spatial needs for the new settlers were different from those of the Bedouins’.

Thus, two housing types of settlements have been occupied by the Nile Valley’s out-migrants. First, the official housing sector that tried to absorb the increasing out-migrants’ population through constructing collective housing prototypes reflecting their former urban background. The second sector is the informal housing sector initiated by out-migrants themselves in accordance with the official lack in providing sufficient housing units for them. On the other hand, the Bedouins of Shalatin are still denied their land ownership, which illustrates the contradiction between the inherited land tenure claimed by indigenous population and the official ownership condition affected by unstable political status.

Bedouins Sedentarization

Shalatin

Outmigrants Resettlement

accompanied with shifting in

as a Human Capital that would

their social, economical and

help in implementing the of-

ecological aspects

ficial development plans

Figure 3: Identified two modes3:ofIdentified urbanization relation to the officialin approaches.

Figure two in modes of urbanization relation to the official Source: Author, photosapproaches. credits: H. Mahlawy, S. Khalil.

Source: Author, photos credits: H. Mahlawy, S. Khalil.

4. Official Master Plans

The first official master plan for Shalatin, presented in 1995 by the GOPP, illustrated a typical vision by the state in urbanizing coastal settlements in the Red Sea region. The projected urban development focused mainly on creating urban nodes in order to attract the roaming Bedouin population. Also, the vision tried to enhance

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the new city services and opportunities to absorb outmigration from the dense Nile Valley (GOPP, 1995). However, the real stimulator for the proposed urban approach was the State’s political interest in the first place which reflected on the marginalization of social matters for Bedouins. Moreover, this research concludes that this first official master plan didn’t well consider the possible spatial interactions between the two different ethnic groups.

Figure 4: The 1st Urban Vision for Shalatin.

Source: GOPP, Author.

The second official urban approach in Shalatin (2000) was a refinement of the GOPP’s first attempt. This approach emphasized the State’s interest in adopting the tourism industry as a main economical stimulator for the city. However, this second approach didn’t embed any notion for the expected negative impacts on both the social and cultural manners of the conservative Bedouin society (Waly, 2005). Consequently, it can be observed that this second approach was mainly concerned with the urban transformation of Shalatin from a semi-urban Bedouin settlement to an urban and regional center. However, the planner recognized the main spatial relations between inhabitants and the social, ecological and economical factors separately, in which they were not elaborated in an integral urban vision for the city. Two modes of urbanization (Urban-Bedouin) were defined and each had its own characteristics. Thus, the second approach proposed an urban development axis, whereas housing clusters are to be constructed with respect to the Bedouin tribal structure. Pastoralism, as a main social and economic activity, was excluded from any integration in Shalatin’s urban morphology.

Also, population dynamics on the ground between the different ethnicities was not tackled, in which potential conflicts and informal encroachments were not considered, as well.

References Abdel-Hakim, S. (1998). General overview on the Halayeb Triangle. Symposim for setting a comprehensive development vision to the Halayeb triangle. Cairo: African research and studies center, Cairo University.

Al Badawy, A. s. (1998). Geographical Conditions & Development of Natural Resources. Symposim for setting a comprehensive development vision to the Halayeb triangle. . Cairo: African research and studies center- Cairo University.

Awad, M. (1970). Living Conditions of Nomadic and Semi-Nomadic and Settled Tribal Groups. In C. W. Abdulla M. Lutfiyya, Readings in Arab Middle Eastern Societies and Cultures. Netherlands: Mouton and co.

Badawey, N. (1993). Me and the Desert. Cairo: Dar El-Helal.

Hirst, K. K. (2007). Sedentism. Retrieved July 13, 2014, from About.com: http://archaeology.about.com/od/sterms/g/ sedentism.htm Merriam-Webster, .. (n.d.). nomad. Retrieved May 29, 2014, from Merriam-Webster: http://www.merriam-webster.com/ dictionary/nomad Waly, T. (2005). Refinement of Shalatin City Master Plan- Design Project for a Bedouin Sedentarization Prototype. Cairo.

Cairo.

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Š IUSD Masters Program 2014 Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher.

First Edition, 2014 ISSN 2356-8542 (Print) ISSN 2356-850X (Online)