Video games can be considered a strong asset in the tourism industry. It is a form of media that allows for interactive experiences. It also allows the virtual reconstruction of historical sites and cities that are difficult or impossible to reconstruct physically, thus, introducing historical sites to a new generation. Pervasive gaming (playing on site) can help augment the tourist’s experience by using 21st-century technologies, such as augmented reality, to reconstruct the site virtually and to let the player experience the history of the sites in a more engaging way. This paper aims to provide stakeholders (decision makers, preservation professionals, and game designers) with a guide on how to start the development process of a pervasive game in historical sites for the purpose of promoting the Egyptian architectural heritage to the next generation according to their understanding capacity and expectations. This paper presents pervasive gaming as a platform for the virtual restoration of historical monuments as well as the revival of the intangible aspects of these sites, particularly the historical stories associated with them.

The universe around us stands as a proof of the greatness of God. Everything around us, small or huge, tiny or great, all confirms the fact that this universe has a creator who initiated it and keeps running and maintaining it. No one can ignore such a fact. All aspects of beauty and perfection have been created by Allah. Despite the vast technological and scientific development that humanity witnesses these days, we still discover new indications of God’s creativity and miraculous formations every day. This was a source of inspiration for architectural designers that made them come up with new inventions and creations that help regeneration and natural environmental sustainability. Many architects try to copy nature in their designs as they believe that the biomimetic approach is considered the design approach that best preserves the environment and sustains buildings. The absence of a clear definition of different approaches of biomimetic designs of various architectural works is one of the stumbling blocks that face many developers of architectural trends and architectural designers in particular. The research problem is summarized by highlighting various biomimetic approaches of architectural designs through reviewing all previous theories and researches and also studying biomimetic technologies that lead to different results as an introduction to sustainability.

Nowadays, many countries suffer from severe shortage of energy resources and the inability of saving it. It is necessary to develop an integrated strategy, to make buildings consume less energy and to integrate active and passive design techniques. Since the building orientation is one of the most important factors affecting energy consumption, this paper addresses the effect of building orientation on the amount of energy consumption within buildings. We employ the simulator "Energy-plus" to estimate energy consumption annually and during critical months in summer and winter. To obtain the best orientation for maximum energy saving, different orientations are tested. It is found that an air-conditioned building that has a southern facade consumes less energy. However, a western facade causes higher annual energy consumption by 26% over the southern facade. In the case of a two-facade building, the lowest energy consumption is obtained between the northern and southern orientations in Cairo, Egypt.

Being the main user of any architectural product, the user’s role in the designing process should be significant, especially in complex spatial spaces such as hospitals, museums, offices, and public-use buildings. This gives the users meta- roles such as communicators, performers, and interpreters. User-Centered Design (UCD) tries to optimize the fit of the spaces with how users can, want to, and need to use in these spaces, rather than forcing the users to change their behavior to accommodate the architectural spaces or designing dysfunctional spaces. Such spaces were designed neglecting the human factor and only using building regulations. The visitor’s parameters, profiles, spatial experiences, and the architectural configuration are what can affect the experience in architectural spaces. This paper explores a different UCD (user-centered design) approach in the evaluation of the built environment which is the parametric spatial analysis approach. The approach studies the spatial pattern of human behavior of a random selection of users, so it could represent any potential users in the buildings. Aiming to intensively engage users in the design process, the approach uses parametric spatial design in analyzing the visitor’s behavior and deducing some design patterns and configurations that focus on different ways of user’s engagement. This approach compares the definition of users, their roles, and the type of space envisioned and produced as well. This paper describes an approach that attempts to bridge the gap between parametric geometry modeling and methods for measuring the spatial properties of this geometry. In exhibition spaces with their different spatiality, visitors tend to have some indicators which can be measured. Accordingly, designers create functional spaces that suit the different types of visitors using parametric components that study the collective human behavior (organizational behavior). These functional spaces are designed through observation, user surveys, and interviews to simplify the complexity of decisions regarding the design process and visitor’s parameters, and to embed them into an algorithm that can solve the complexity of the visitor’s parameters. Analyzing visitors’ behavior and the spatial morphology improves the visiting experience and provides better interpretations. The analysis makes the designers aware of visitors’ circulation, visiting styles, behavior, patterns, tendencies, and trends within a wide diversity of spaces. Moreover, this analysis can be combined into an evolutionary algorithm to help solve problems.

Knowledge is considered one of the effective assets which control the success of organizations, and its effective management is crucial. Although knowledge has existed and has been used along all projects, the way it was managed was almost intuitive and highly reliable on in-house systems. As a consequence, knowledge management was introduced in the late 1990s to help companies create, share, and systematically use knowledge. Knowledge management can be defined as the identification, optimization, and active management of intellectual assets that create value, increase productivity, and gain and sustain competitive advantage. Construction field, as one of the most complicated fields, is considered a project- based field where numbers of investments in it are in millions every year. Although knowledge in construction is among the main factors for project success, most of this knowledge lies in the minds of the people, which makes it hard to be captured and stored. Accordingly, effective knowledge management in construction is affected by different factors, including the willingness of people to share their knowledge and the mobilization of the workforce from one project to another without sharing lessons learned and previous knowledge. Here comes the role of application of KM, which could help prevent “reinventing the wheel” in construction. This paper aims at offering a comprehensive overview of the application of KM in construction through reviewing extant literature sources. Topics discussed included factors affecting KM, KM tools and techniques, the processes of KM, and the main benefits and challenges facing KM. There are many factors affecting knowledge management and many tools and techniques to manage knowledge. As for the findings of this paper, they took the form of an analysis of the main benefits and challenges facing the application of KM in construction.

With rapid climate changes in recent years, it has become important as it is necessary to think about a new concept of architecture that respects and considers the environment. To counter these changes, the concept of environmental and green architecture starters’ theory has appeared as one of the applications of creative solutions in buildings. Architects then began turning it from a theoretical study on the method of the design of buildings and making them environment-friendly by reducing the consumption of resources to run the building and reduce damage to the environment due to Alanbosat and waste resulting from construction work. Environmental and green architecture does not just reduce the impact on the environment but also supports energy-efficient buildings, which achieves self-sufficiency within the building. It also provides energy production and exploits the optimal way efficiently and with equanimity. This paper aims to: - Highlight the importance of green architecture and sustainability in shape. - Reach a methodology to convert existing buildings into green buildings.

Egyptian universities had the most powerful buildings that encourage sustainable development. Sustaining university buildings had been the main concern, thus the development focused on different aspects (social, sociological, bio-life, physical, healthy surroundings, etc.). In recent times, the main problem facing university buildings has been the high consumption of energy despite the low performance. This problem affected the interior areas and spaces used by the majority of students. The issue hindered the learning environment—which should be designed to facilitate high academic performance—from achieving its purpose. Fixing the problem required finding the errors applied in the planning policy, in order to integrate low energy consumption with high performance. This paper analyzes the design strategy, low energy design strategy, and its analysis systems in order to integrate them with the analysis of four case studies in comparative methodology. This approach helps in achieving effective observation to implement principles, policy, criteria, and strategies. The method of the paper shall help with coming up with an efficient vision to create the integrated design strategy for constructing university buildings in Egypt. The solution is characterized by low-cost energy consumption that is applicable to the conditions in Egypt and is in synchronization with sustainability as a whole vision.

Today, architecture is one of the finest products of the creative human mind that God has given us. Its existence is a necessity which makes the aspects of human life and way of thinking balanced between endless desires and needs. This confirms the strong relationship between the architectural product and humans. This relationship is based on providing humans with their needs and it aims to find appropriate solutions to the problems facing them. Additions that can be added to the architectural product such as motion help in activating the interaction in this relationship. The movement is added to the architectural output to express a new relationship between the environment and the human who was affected by the existence of motors and its utilitarian, technical, and aesthetic issues. The research focuses on how these effects can be exploited to solve problems like energy consumption that is a main problem in the construction process.

Architecture students use both analog and digital tools throughout their design process. Ideally, the affordances of each tool complement each other. Our goal with Kitoparts is to move beyond two-dimensional screen based computer modeling environments to create a system that feels analog but harnesses all the affordances of digital modeling environments. With the usage of VR and haptic controllers, we hope to provide a rich and flexible methodology for investigating forms and space. In educational settings, Kitoparts aims to solve three major problems with traditional beginning design exercises. First, it solves the scaling problem, allowing design students to see their designs visualized at full scale and in real-time. Second, it overcomes the combinatorial nature of physical building blocks by allowing 3D shapes to overlap and embed into each other in ways they could not within the physical world. Finally, we include the designer’s “hands” in the creative process. Virtual hands prove to be much more intuitive to use than the traditional mouse and keyboards commonly utilized in most CAD and modeling software. With Kitoparts, the computer model is no longer just a tool for representation; it becomes the user interface for design. Kitoparts allows both seasoned designers and novices to simply play, build, and explore.

Naturalism is the philosophy that adopted the theory of evolution and the domination of natural properties. The popularity of naturalism was due to the rise of the extensive biological researches and the evolution of natural sciences by the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth. The emergence and the rise of these scientific theories were the contributing factors to the domination of naturalistic trends. It had an ample impact on urban and architectural schemes. Environmental catastrophes and the climate change that followed the second world war that reached its peak in the last two decades of the twentieth century were the major factors in attracting the attention to the importance of preserving nature. Naturalism was inspired by biological theories using a biological metaphor. The philosophy brought to mind techno-scientific images which drew out the concept of genetic architecture. These images tried to synchronize with the natural variables in order to achieve the concept of sustainable development. This paper aims to examine the concept of sustainable architecture by studying the architectural movements that are influenced by nature and biological theories, such as terms, models, projects, and buildings. For a deep understanding of the current discourse, this paper searches for the impact of the philosophy of naturalism on the history of sustainable architecture. The paper focuses on the notion of resilience while picturing the transformation of economic, political, social and physical structures into resilient urban spaces and organizational patterns which have the potential to grow and change—a subject mostly presented in a historical review.

A design studio is the heart and soul of the architectural education curricula where students learn to make repetitive design decisions that result in design strategies for resource use in order to create an environmental system that reacts to the human needs and requirements or solves existing problems. Integrating sustainability principles into the undergraduate design studio is an urgent need in order to teach young architects sustainable design principles that can stop the continued environmental degradation of the planet. This study proposed a new design studio pedagogy for integrating sustainability principles with a method to test the new pedagogy and the students’ final products. This paper presents the tests results of the pilot study and provides recommendations for the experimental design studio of the following semesters.

Visiting Oman, one firstly encounters wide roads and exaggerated decorations of house façades—situated behind high walls. These broad roads and decorated dwellings are unlike traditional Omani architecture which can be identified as very sensitive to scale and climate. Omani architecture can also be visualized from the narrow streets and low height buildings across many well-preserved villages; built using humble mud or stone structures. Another encounter one might have is the traditional ‘Omani burqa.’ It is worn by some Omani women, originally designed for protection from dust and sand, which mimics the features of a falcon. Lately, the ‘Omani burqa’ has developed into a true fashion-item and is used as a ‘face mask’ with different colors and shapes. Fashionable burqas are often decorated with shimmering crystals or diamonds which differs from the traditional design. What is visible behind the ‘burqa’, the ‘eye’, and the ‘burqa’ itself, become quite embellished, subsiding the importance of the other parts of the face. The façade design of a modern Omani house and its walls are like the modern ‘burqa’ and the ‘eye’. Even though the house is separated from the street by high walls, the importance of visual access from the street to façade can be perceived from the highly decorated house façades, and decorated walls at the same time. This study—using visual analysis of house façades in Salalah, Oman—attempts to identify the architectural elements used in architectural design. These elements are repeated all over Oman, to accentuate visibility from the street to the façade. Eventually, the study concludes that the importance of the visuality from the street to the façade, in a changing ‘closed’ society, is the leading factor for the embellishment of the wall and the façades, rendering the overall design behind the wall insignificant.

Existing buildings are the massive percentage of the building stock, and therefore, are the key to improving efficiency; buildings account for an enormous share of the climate change crisis, and approximately 40% of the world total energy consumption (McArthur & Jofeh, 2015). The Egyptian stock of buildings includes about 12 million buildings. 60% of these buildings are residential. The final electricity consumption of the residential buildings in 2010 was 51370 GWh and increased in 2014 to reach 62441 GWh. Thus the share of total energy consumption was 18.8% in 2010 and increased to reach 21.55% in 2014 ("Technology Roadmap - Energy efficient building envelopes.", 2013). Therefore, the residential sector plays an important role in the mitigation of energy consumption crisis, which is expected to increase. The research field and initiatives in Egypt on the green buildings and green buildings retrofits are rare and, if existing, are weakly applied. Unlike in developed countries, there is a large research on building retrofits, e.g., the Residential Property Assessed Clean Energy (R-PACE) program and the weatherization assistance program (WAP) of the department of energy (DOE). Both are examples of the incentives to green building initiatives globally. This paper discusses the challenge of greening the existing residential buildings in Egypt by demonstrating an analysis of the motives and the barriers to applying green measures in the Egyptian market. The research methodology comprises the analytical-comparative method. In the analytical part; the paper identifies the current situation of the residential sector energy consumption in Egypt, and the benefits of greening existing buildings for tenants, investors, and owners. In the comparative part, the current situation of Egypt’s Green Market Business Case is compared with the international one, discussing the challenge of greening the residential buildings. The paper summarizes the opportunities to improve the building energy efficiency, incentives, and policies that are developed to address significant financial and technical awareness to building efficiency. These policies will help enable critical market actors to make decisions to promote energy efficiency in existing buildings.

Currently, there are several technologies applied in many societies to improve the use of the environmental resources such as the use of soil with some binders in the construction of buildings, and the usage of the stabilized earth architecture technique by new urban communities. One of the advantages of these buildings is that they make good use of the environment and save energy and expenditure. This project deals with the use of the sandy soil which resulted from the excavation of the buildings. It also targets the design and building of whole low energy, ecological, and low-cost green building/villages in the future projects in Sinai and Suez Canal zone, using stabilized earth architecture. The sandy soil under study is that of the sand on the east side of the Suez Canal in Sinai which is a by-product of the dry excavation and wet drilling of the canal. This paper showed that passive and energy efficient techniques incorporated in building designs can reduce the electricity requirements. The most effective parameter is the thermal efficiency of building envelope and blocking sun rays. The available renewable energy systems can meet parts of building loads. Thermal bridges are not so common in the bearing wall construction method. Herein in this paper, several specimens were collected from different sites in Elferdan and Serapum in Sinai (Suez canal zone) along the east side of the Suez Canal to investigate the suitability of stabilizing this soil for the production of compressed earth blocks for low-cost ecologic building construction. Several tests, e.g., sieve analysis and the proctor test, were made of the specimens. The results showed that the ratio of salts, chlorides and sulfates were low. In addition, the specimens collected sieve analysis ranged from coarse to fine sand. Stabilizing the materials resulted from the by-production in the industry can be used for minimizing the coast of compressed stabilized earth buildings with high engineering properties. Experiments on the produced compressed stabilized earth bricks (CSEB) with different level of stabilizing agent (by-product materials) were made using one of the specimens collected from Elferdan zone. The results showed that the 35% CKD ratio of sand weight can be considered as the optimum CKD content; which provides the best properties for the admixture as long as the percentages of cement (OPC) and the fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) are 5% and 0.07% of sand weight, respectively. The rest of this research will be completed in the next parts, which includes finding more mechanical, engineering, and thermal properties of the produced CSEB.

Construction is a high-risk industry owning to several accidents that take place in construction sites. Fatalities and workplace injuries are a major issue. Construction managers concentrate on profitability as far as cost, quality, and time are concerned. Unless experts end up mindful of safety-related issues, development tasks can never reach their targets. The main aim of this paper is to review the literature that highlights the result of the implementation of occupational health and safety practices in construction sites. The research examines the impact of the implementation on the number of accidents in construction sites and the precautions that should be taken into consideration starting from the pre-construction stage. Previous research suggested that early introduction of occupational safety & health management systems (OHSMS) and elements within the project implementation is an important asset in decision-making. It aims toward the abatement of occupational hazards in the workplace. The paper explores through a literature review the root causes of construction accidents and factors causing risks in construction sites. The research explains OSHMS, and its effects, and how they can be integrated into the pre-construction stage in projects. The impact of the implementation of occupational health and safety practices at construction sites will be discussed as well. The study concluded that due to implementing OHSMS, there is a significant reduction in accidents. In order to improve security and health, safety measures should be included starting from the preparation of contract documents. It is recommended that the managers of top construction companies commit more to safety and health procedures. There is a need to provide funding for the regulatory body that oversees health and safety in the construction industry.

Urban Spaces had played an important role in the individuals’ psychological life and in their integration with their environment as it’s considered as the mediator through which the interactions between people with each other and with their natural environment, they can exchange their cultures and spread activities. Despite its importance, many communities suffer from the absence of positive communication between individuals and place they belong to or lack of happiness while being in it. The reason for that is the ignorance of some urban designer to the role of the humanity in the process of the design and its impact on the formation of the urban spaces, though through urban design the complexities of the place can be managed and a general framework for change can be created by designing a compatible and sustainable space for users depending on the events and activities located in it that show political, social and economic transformations that occurs to the communities and affect the social development for individuals. Although there are social diversity among members of the same community but it was observed that there is a similarity in their behaviors towards certain positions, which expresses their culture. Social celebrations (Festivals) are considered the most effective patronize for social formats impact on the spatial formation, as it helps in supporting the idea of individuals’ belonging to the place since the human there is the main sponsor for forming the spaces that contain all the activities and events that may be specific or temporary with a time or an event, and thus it was essential to show physical and non-physical components for space formation in order to gain access to identify the reciprocal relationship between the individual and the place and highlight the most important and successful spatial expressions that help boost the spirit of communication between individuals and develop a sense of belonging to the place. The paper examines how the dynamics of social life at the local scale are shaped by the special spatial arrangements created for urban festival events by the observation of the social changes impact on the resulting urban transformations during festival and its role in individuals’ sense of belonging substation.

Today, introducing Urban Heritage into the architectural education curriculum is becoming an important component of the learning experience. It strengthens the sense of belonging, national pride, and cultural identity of students as an active and remarkable part of their history that guides their future. Urban Heritage allows previous generations a better understanding of their long and rich history. The main objective for introducing Urban Heritage into the architectural education was to link heritage practice with teaching and research activities, as well as to create synergies between the educational activities and the surrounding community in order to ensure the preservation and the appreciation of the heritage. As part of Hekma School of Design and Architecture, the architecture department at Dar Al- Hekma University reflected its mission “To graduate professionals in the field of architecture and equip them with the necessary knowledge and skills, focusing on sustainable design while preserving the cultural and aesthetic values of Saudi Arabia.” within the curriculum. The mission was materialized through a set of interdisciplinary and co-curricular activities and initiatives for the promotion, conservation and revitalization of urban heritage in Saudi Arabia. Those actions were determined to create a dynamic environment for social, cultural and economic development at large. The plan was also to strengthen students’ appreciation of urban heritage through the sharing and exchanging of knowledge, skills, and experience between the pedagogical activities and the real practices for mutual enrichment. Often, each activity was dedicated to a given heritage theme. The activities are structured in thematic subjects covering many areas, such as heritage and sustainable development, theory and practices of conservation, adaptive re-use of heritage buildings, inter-disciplinary research investigations, heritage for dialogue, and reconciliation, among other themes. The creation of the architecture curriculum in the fields of urban heritage was the first step to share knowledge and competencies, and to encourage professors and students’ participation in heritage safeguarding projects. Besides, this program tends to promote inter-cultural dialogues through heritage appreciation. The paper investigates the challenges associated with studying heritage in architecture, as well as opportunities for students to be more excited about studying heritage, develop their skills, and be self-motivated. It is expected that the paper will analyze Dar Al-Hekma University educational experience in integrating urban heritage within the architectural education curriculum among other national and international experiences. It will evaluate related teaching approaches and draw thoughtful conclusions in order to use this unique pedagogical process and learning outcomes in enhancing the heritage appreciation and its practices.

Since the expression "Building Information Modeling" (BIM) was initially presented in the Engineering and Construction AEC industry in the most recent decade; it has changed numerous parts of the design, construction, and operation of a building. BIM is a middleware connector that represents the advancement and utilization of PC. BIM has various frameworks which have been conducted by the pioneers in the BIM industry to enhance the BIM process. There is a study of the reflection of those frameworks on the Egyptian AEC industry to overcome the threats that prevent Egypt from applying BIM technology more broadly. In addition, a comparison is conducted between the successful countries which implemented BIM in their projects and managed to enhance their adoption by examining the local challenges and targets. The countries then made strategies and standards to overcome the aforementioned obstacles. Furthermore, successful actions were applied that can match with the Egyptian industrial requirements. This paper is expected to define the challenges which are facing the Egyptian industry to apply BIM and the potential capabilities of solving those problems. To acquire the vital information to carry on this paper, a questionnaire was created and distributed in the AEC community. The reason for the study was to see how experts consider BIM as a device in the fields of design and construction in general and in the Egyptian industry particularly. The aim of this paper is to propose a framework through several case studies which are discussed, analyzed and compared. The purpose of the analysis is to explore the importance of using BIM. Additionally, exploring the effect of different parameters on implementing BIM helped significantly during the process. It starts with proposing its framework with evaluating matrix that contains attributes to measure its success, moreover, it serves as a great help to the Egyptian companies that make real business decisions about enhancing BIM implementation through this framework.

The issue of examining the earthquake safety for existing constructions, which form the basis of urban mitigation strategies, requires new methods and tools according to each city’s and society’s specific conditions. The common goal in all methods is to yield correct results in a timely manner. However, due to the multiplicity and complexity of the parameters used in the examination, auxiliary tools are needed. This is not only because of difficulties in collecting data, but also in order to obtain reliable results. Thus, collected data must be analyzed in computerized environment. In this study, an evaluation tool (software) called "Disaster Risk Analysis and Evaluation System (DRAES)" is developed. This software has been implemented and tested in Antalya; one of the metropolitan cities of Turkey within an area of 8800 hectares at 26610 buildings. The obtained results were evaluated comparatively which determined, consequently, the priority areas for planning as an important input for the city of Antalya. In this study, the general structure and working principle of the developed software are given. The source codes and data base of the program have been registered in accordance with the regulation on Registration of the Intellectual and Artistic Works of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

Egyptian urban spaces suffer from a chaos that is the result of crowded and disordered pedestrian sidewalks, streets and shop signage. This chaos creates a negative effect on, both, the image of the city and the quality of life within these urban spaces. Many legislations and regulations in Egypt attempted to deal with these issues. Similarly, the Egyptian government established many organizations and authorities in order to deal with these issues with little success. The National Organization of Urban Harmony (NOUH) is one of those organizations established by the government to take the responsibility of dealing with pedestrian sidewalk and shops’ signage while the municipality deals with road occupations. These organizations should perform their responsibilities through the Egyptian legislations. The research at hand aims to find a solution to that particular problem which has influenced the quality of the street and its reflection to the quality of life as result. In order to find a solution, the research attempts to find a mechanism to boost the role of shop signage as an element of urban spaces in order to emphasize street quality. Thus, the research well be divided into four parts: part one reviews the quality of urban spaces and the meaning of its terms while part two reviews the concept of the quality of life and the relation between the quality of life and urban spaces. Part three demonstrates the urban quality of life through tangible and intangible approaches. Finally, part four reviews the Egyptian legislations that deal with research issues and attempts to find the difficulties that faced when enforcing laws. Finally, the research conclusion illustrates the most important issues in the research and their proposed solutions.

The construction of any river obstruction has some morphological impacts on the river bed and flow as it implies some disturbance to the river water flow. This disturbance causes local scour to occur due to bridge construction. For many reasons, there exists a need to protect these assets by continuous monitoring and maintenance. For this research, 6 th October Bridge was considered as a case study for bridges constructed on caissons along the River Nile. A field data (contour maps for the bed of the River Nile at year 1982and 2008) and computer model FDOT (developed by Florida Department of Transportation), was used to evaluate the depth of scour at the caissons of 6 th October Bridge. Conclusions and recommendations were highlighted.

Organizations strive to develop their products in a way that fulfils customers’ requirements and increases their satisfaction. The traditional Quality Function Deployment (QFD) is a popular technique for that purpose but it has some drawbacks. To tackle these drawbacks, the researchers will implement Blitz QFD a modern model of the traditional one and integrate it with fuzzy logic through a case study on the development of a cargo tricycle. This model provides a leaner approach that captures the most critical requirements of customers in order to implement them and provides more reasonable values as a result of using fuzzy logic.