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There is a considerable amount of interest among scholars and urban designers in assessing and fulfilling a shared desire for happiness that is expressed by users of open spaces. The scope of this paper is limited to user experience in a university campus, and considerations around the impact of the setting and design of existing open spaces on stimulating positive feelings and happiness in students, and enhancing the all-round educational experience. The study is limited to young female students at the Effat University campus, in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Jeddah City. This paper aims to assess the students’ level of happiness on a university campus by examining the impact of the open spaces design and setting on the students. A cognitive map analysis is used to investigate the students’ emotional experience of the open spaces on campus. Also, a questionnaire is used to investigate the students’ preferable open spaces and the reasons for their preferences, which validate the results. The results showed that due to social and environmental conditions some decisions need to be made in response to outdoor temperatures and the spaces’ settings in order to improve their design and make a significant positive impact on students’ happiness. In addition, this could potentially result in a happier, healthier, and more efficient educational environment overall.

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Private cars contribute heavily to air pollution and significantly lower air quality in cities. The number of deaths because of pollution and car accidents is increasing on a global level; therefore, achieving sustainable mobility in urban areas is essential. Hence, the transformation into a car-free model is not a marginal issue but rather a crucial need that should be a global trend. The biggest challenge in this transforming process is to minimize the dependency on private cars. This chapter reviews thoroughly some global practices of inspiring models of transforming into car-free cities around the world. This review aims to identify the success measures for the transformation of a car-free city through investigating the challenges that affected the adoption of the transformation process. This would potentially guide governments and policymakers to select the approach that copes effectively with the cultural, social, geographical, and economic characteristics of their countries.

The growing complexity in environmental degradation requires a serious action for adopting sustainable initiatives in the different institutions design and operation. Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), is the most widely used green building rating system in the world that helps institutions to evaluate their current sustainable performance, and provides a concise guidance for identifying and implementing practical and measurable solutions. One of the important challenges to achieve sustainability, especially in hot dry climate region, such as Jeddah city, KSA, is the urban heat island effect that contributes to energy consumption.  Effat University, Jeddah is striving towards convoying the sustainable trends in developing and designing its campus, in the light of Saudi 2030 vision, which targets reducing energy consumption. This research contributes to the knowledge of rating sustainability through measuring the level of sustainability at Effat University Campus with reference to the LEED v4 rating system (Operation and Maintenance). The research focuses on site selection category, Heat Island Reduction Credit, Option 1 Non-roof Surfaces. This was carried on through quantitative methodology that based on surveying the university campus landscape elements and materials, and interviewing maintenance key persons. The results of this research would potentially help Effat University to improve the campus environmental and energy performance through recommending a set of evidence-driven actions that can help in reducing heat island effect and enhance the efficiency of the university landscape sitting and material. This would also  help in moving Effat University one-step forward to develop a green campus and being LEED Certified.

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