Social sustainability refers to "development that leads to the harmonious evolution of society". This paper explores the concept of social sustainability and the aspects it encompasses, with particular focus on the maintenance of socio-cultural characteristics deemed important by people. The research investigates the socio-cultural aspects in the case study area of El-Raml Station, the old city centre of Alexandria, Egyptt, which is known for its historical value. The development of the area poses a number of threats, including the loss of its character. The case study examines these threats, setting a number of testable criteria to help evaluate and maintain preferred socio-cultural characteristics, and thus advance social sustainability. The used methods comprise literature review, interviews and a questionnaire. The research concludes with a number of findings that are expected to clarify the maintenance of socio-cultural characteristics in El-Raml Station. The area is found to have a strong sense of place, and is perceived by its visitors as an important shopping area. On the other hand, it suffers from social polarisation and compromised feelings of safety.
Affordable housing in Egypt is one of the critical policy means to control the housing market. It provides subsidised housing for newlyweds and low-income groups. For obvious and financial reasons, affordable housing sites are being developed for intensive use and high population densities. At the same time, the Mediterranean City of Alexandria has a sustained North-West wind that positively promotes natural ventilation probabilities.With the purpose of development, affordability, running cost savings, and thermal and health targets, we enquire about the influence of intensive site use and urban configuration of an affordable housing compound in Alexandria on the natural ventilation potential? This is especially important when, paradoxically, affordable housing compounds' inhabitants in the city often use mechanical ventilation and complain about indoor overheating. In this paper, we study the challenge of assessing natural ventilation provision and potential in affordable housing buildings and its relationship to life cycle cost. Methods include inductive and deductive techniques to define the natural ventilation design rules and guidelines, which are then used to evaluate an existing case of affordable housing for young people in Alexandria. Also, a CFD package is used to simulate the air flow patterns developing in response to site organisation and the layout of buildings.The study shows that excessive population cramming in the case study site, comes at the cost of poor pressure distribution, hence there is diminished natural ventilation potential, and imprudent energy use and operational costs.
Generally, energy consumption in buildings has increased in the last 10 years by almost 95%, and with existing stock that is expected to have a long life; sustainable improvements to buildings should extend to existing buildings as well as new builds; retrofit should be embraced by developing an integrated decision to assess existing buildings' conditions and to recommend an optimal set of sustainable retrofitting strategies.Energy consumption in office buildings is one of the highest compared to other building types; with an annual consumption that ranges between 100 and 1000kWh/m 2 depending on geographic location, use, type of office equipment, type of envelope, use of HVAC systems and type of lighting. Several factors could reduce the energy consumption in offices; such as passive design, energy conservation plans, water management systems, controlled lighting systems, use of renewable energy, limited use of active air conditioning system and building envelope improvements. This paper aims at developing an assessment and retrofit strategy for improving the energy performance of offices with focus on the building's envelope which with careful design could reduce energy consumption and carbon footprint by up to 15%.The paper starts by exploring the features of the building envelope, and how they impact energy consumption, in addition to suitable retrofit systems. Both envelope elements and retrofit systems formulate a framework; which is then applied to an office building in Alexandria, Egypt as a case-study.
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