Mohsen Aboulnaga

The continuous rise in energy demands due to rapid urbanization and human activities puts immense pressure on local governments and cities globally, especially amidst the COVID-19 crisis and economic slowdown. Hence, developing cities and buildings towards net-zero goals is becoming urgent and significantly vital to adopt renewable scenarios in the building sector given the climate crisis. The outcome of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of Parties (COP26) agreed on and declared the Glasgow Climate Pact (GCP) which stated the serious concern of climate and weather extremes and their adverse impacts on people and nature that will continue to increase with an additional increment of rising temperature. The GCP reaffirmed the long-term global goal to hold the increase in global average temperature to well below 2 °C below-industrial real levels in addition to recognizing that limiting global warming to 1.5 entails rapid, deep, and sustained reduction in global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 45% by 2030 and to contribute towards climate-neutral cities and reasserted the goal of net-zero by 2050. Hence, city leaders should focus on reducing carbon emissions by 2050. Nevertheless, if global warming is to be limited to 1.5 °C, all cities need to be net-zero by 2050 at the very latest. Therefore, net-zero, low-carbon building and clean mobility can play a great role in achieving climate neutrality by 2050. This book chapter aims to address the urgent need to transform the building industry and cities to become low carbon. The chapter highlights the importance of net-zero low-carbon cities. It also presents global examples of net-zero-energy buildings (NZEBs) and how these models contribute to the net-zero target and climate neutrality. Additionally, current policies, actions, and initiatives worldwide and in Egypt towards NZEB to achieve green and sustainable cities have also been examined and discussed. Ultimately, net-zero carbon and managing “transition” remain a huge challenge for cities and regions, but coupling these goals with innovative thinking for the future is primarily essential if cities worldwide are to become resilient enough and meet COP26 outcomes and the GCP.

Climate change is causing a serious impact across the world with many droughts, floods, and destruction of cities’ infrastructures. The absence of adequate international and national climate policies in addition to citizens’ behaviour and attitude in their daily lifestyle is contributing immensely to carbon emissions and consequently climate change (CC). To mitigate CC and its risks, research and government actions should focus on humans’ behaviour to enhance their performance towards building resilient cities, low-carbon communities, and better healthy environments. Citizens’ daily activities such as energy consumption, water use, and means of transportation as well as recycling procedures should be examined. The objective of this study is centred on understanding and examining the psychosocial causes of human behaviour impact towards climate change, primarily through assessing the patterns of reproduction and consumption to mitigate severe impacts and risks of CC through knowledge and citizens’ behaviour change. The methodology is based on qualitative and quantitative approaches. The first approach focuses on the psychological understanding of human behaviour to analyze human daily activities, while the quantitative approach is centred on data collection and a questionnaire targeting different citizens, living in different counties, with variable work backgrounds and ages to calculate carbon emissions from their daily activities and identify which activities generate the highest GHG emissions. Results indicate that humans generate 23.7 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions per year, which is twice the rate when compared with the UK’s Average Footprint – estimated at 9.5 tons only. The study provides guidelines and recommendations to mitigate climate change, achieve resilient cities, and healthy and liveable communities in addition to enhance humans’ daily lifestyle, especially in the age of COVID-19.

This book focuses on understanding biomimetic architecture and its role as a sustainable design tool. It presents the role of biomimicry in mitigation and adaptation to climate change and examines how biomimetic architecture can provide healthy solutions to limit the spread of COVID-19 in buildings and cities. Coverage includes global examples of biomimetic approaches and buildings, an evaluation of the performance of biomimicry applications in architecture to illustrate best practices, and an exploration of how nature can offer inspiration in building design to conserve resources and save energy use as well as curb carbon emissions – a reaffirmed goal of COP 26 and an outcome of Glasgow Climate Pact. Finally, the book presents guidelines to enhance urban areas and healthier spaces in buildings to meet COVID-19 social distance regulations and beyond.

Examines global applications of biomimicry in architecture;
Highlights the importance of biomimicry in driving livability in cities and buildings;
Explores the role of biomimetic architecture in mitigating climate change.
“The line of argument developed is highly relevant to the present, in addition to being original and pertinent to research on urban regeneration, especially in regard to the exploration of the use of biomimicry architecture in response to changing urban demands.”

—Alessandra Battisti, Ph.D., Professor of Architecture, University of Rome La Sapienza-

Climate change is currently affecting most of the cities across the globe in the past years with its climate severe events manifested in the year 2019. This objective of this paper is to focus on the strategic renewable energy and climate action plans of two seaside cities in Egypt to strengthen clean energy capacity and implementation based on each city’s strategy in 2030. Diagnostic studies were carried out to identify the gap in each city in terms of climate change and renewable energy. Prior to providing a detailed account of the concrete measures undertaken to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and promote the development of sustainable energy, the national and regional strategies on climate change adaptation and renewable energy capacity and future needs were assessed to draw the gap at the local government level. Climate change risks by sectors in terms of vulnerability have been assessed and presented. The adaptation scoreboard of the Adaptation Cycle-Specific Steps (ACSS) for each city, based on the European Commission Joint Research Centre (EC-JRC) guidelines, including six steps has also been utilised to assess the climate actions in the city. In addition, risk assessment and vulnerability analysis were conducted using a set of parameters and interviews with local government officials. In order to conduct the risk assessment and vulnerability analysis on the city, as a first step, the climate hazard types were identified. Both Hurghada and Luxor were selected to assess the impact of each climate hazard type, where a series of vulnerable and impacted sectors, such as population (public health), infrastructure (transport, energy, water, and social), and the built environment (building stock and materials), as well as economy (tourist and agriculture) and biodiversity (coastal zone ecosystems and green zones) were diagnosed and assessed. The vulnerability analysis, which is based on the Future Cities Adaptation Compass Tool, Governors’ (Mayors) Adapt, and the European Climate Adaptation Platform, is carried out and presented. The results of the adopted climate adaptation actions in the city of Hurghada and the city of Luxor, including impacted sectors, are presented and discussed. Finally, the renewable energy action of upgrading the solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity in both the cities from 13 MW to 35 MW is also assessed and highlighted.

The Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has catastrophic impacts worldwide between 2020 and 2021. Such a pandemic highlighted the importance of healthy spaces in all types of buildings, particularly: public, commercial, educational, and residential buildings during the lockdown periods in 2020 and 2021. In light of the urgent need for healthy spaces amid COVID-19, indoor environmental quality (IEQ) is significantly vital to provide healthy buildings and cities. Thus, it is imperative to ensure and guarantee thermal comfort, natural ventilation/cross ventilation, daylighting, and sunlight provision to ensure better IEQ and attain liveability. This book chapter presents a review on the impacts of COVID-19 on buildings in terms of IEQ and liveability in the age of COVID-19. It also highlights benefits of IEQ in providing healthy buildings including thermal comfort, natural ventilation, and daylighting and sunlight. This chapter addresses the benchmark for IEQ in the time of COVID-19. Additionally, global examples of best practices are highlighted to deduce the best lessons, standards, and practice models. This chapter also depicts selected contemporary buildings vs. traditional ones that include the main features to attain IEQ and draw the lessons learned from such traditional buildings. The chapter seeks to answer a main question – Can IEQ achieve liveability in the age of COVID-19? – and presents a comparative analysis of assessed buildings (case studies).

This article presents an assessment of sustainability conducted post the opening of the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization (NMEC), which underwent vast development that had significant impacts, not only on the global level but also on the international attention towards Egypt’s great civilization. The study investigates the impact of the NMEC’s environmental, social, and economic sustainability and cultural value. Both qualitative and quantitative approaches were adopted. The qualitative includes a preliminary study followed by site visits for collecting data and mapping the four sustainability pillars: environmental, social, economic, and cultural. The quantitative approach has been conducted by exploiting 33 indicators to measure five sustainability dimensions in addition to the UNESCO 15 Thematic Indicators for Culture in the 2030 Agenda; the impact of NMEC on social media using the data scraping technique exploiting GitHub. Energy audit results illustrate that the total annual energy consumption is 491,376.00 kWh (79% in the ground fl. & 21% in the Mummies fl.), as well as 19.98 kWh/m2 (Gr. fl.) and 144 kWh/m2 (Mummies fl.); the first matches RIBA’s benchmark for museums, well below the ranking ‘Good’ (50 kWh/m2). Social sustainability impacts indicate that the word count’s effect on social media is 27%, 31%, and 42% on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, respectively, while the number of followers is 92%, 7%, and 1%. On Google, it is 1275 and ranks 4.7, whereas the number of posts is 231, 350, and 258. Economic sustainability assessment has been addressed by calculating the revenues throughout one year since the grand opening, and the total revenues amount to USD 2,794,047. The cultural sustainability assessment showed a positive response to the evaluation recorded for 9 out of 15 indicators. The sustainability assessment of the NMEC plays a key role in assuring livable and regenerative cities.

Throughout history, wood as a building material has been used extensively thousands years ago. It is considered the second known building material after stone; thus, it is recognized as an ancient building resource material. However, wood as a natural rigid material of plant origin has been substituted and associated with man-made common rigid materials in the building construction such as steel and concrete that are characterized with higher carbon emissions and lower sustainability. But with the rise of environmental stewardship in response to the high carbon emissions in cities, sustainable material usage in buildings has reached spotlights. Wood or timber is recently revitalized in contemporary construction as a sustainable built material for being highly renewable and nontoxic and having low embodied energy feature, even though it has been recently used in skyscrapers. In addition, stakeholders are encouraged to integrate timber in all various building types and to reinvest the sustainable material in construction for its recognized insulation, durability, flexibility, affordability, and aesthetic nature, not to ignore the benefits of wood to the building occupants in enhancing their emotional and physical connection with their occupied spaces. This work is intended to compose a significant achievement in educating architects to look at subjects normally ignored and to consider the use of organic material such as wood (timber) in meaningful ways. It focuses on enriching the knowledge base of sustainable wood and lumber in new and existing buildings by highlighting the advantages and disadvantages of timber material usage; it also aims at encouraging the sustainable experience of timber and broadens its usability and functionality in the industry. In this book chapter, local and global existing building cases are reviewed and assessed for the integration of timber as a construction material in the structure, skeleton, interior, and façade of these buildings. The advances and drawbacks of timber usage in construction are highlighted through the assessment of cases. Finally, a comparative analysis that emphasizes the sustainability of timber as a building material in different case studies is provided. Further, life cycle analysis of timber usage in buildings is to be studied.

Green urban coverage (green roofs, green walls and urban farming) has been extensively used in many countries around the world to offset the heat-related problems in cities resulting from severe climate change events. Rapid urbanization and population increase contribute to increasing urban heat island effect (UHIE) and climate change in megacities. Hence, utilizing urban green coverage can assist in reducing CO2 emissions and enhance air pollution in megacities. This chapter presents a review study on the policies and laws regulating the design and implementation of green roofs internationally and regionally. The chapter also highlights and discusses policies’ types enacted for implementing green roofs in Europe, North America, South America and Asia as well as Australasia and MENA region. Examples of green roofs, green walls and urban farming are presented and discussed.

Cities face many challenges to meet sustainability. This chapter presents a conceptual vision for creating a livable centre for the communities in the city of Conegliano with a special focus on sustainability, not only from an urban farm viewpoint but also as a new social aspect to achieve social sustainability. The design strategy integrates new smart architectural and urban agricultural solutions. Various technologies are incorporated in the building including aquaponic tray farming system, vertical axis wind turbine modules and cable trellis ivy facades as well as multi-spectrum LED-censored lights and double-glazed glass to reduce energy consumption. Such technologies create a self-sustained building with minimal waste and CO2 emissions and livable environments. The social innovation also includes various social spaces (local gym, Treviso cafeteria, educational farm and a research lab), all of which were redesigned to maintain the current existing structure, minimize embodied energy and maximize the social interaction with the users yet encourage communal interaction between the citizens and enhance connectivity. For economic sustainability, a business model including strategy, marketing, operations and SWOT analysis was carried out to predict the project’s operation cost and labour management. Results show that retrofitting this factory will turn such vacant site into a vibrant and multifunctional spot. Also, results indicate that enhancing the site would make the city a livable and an economic hub that serves people, raises awareness and is self-sustained for years to come by addressing sustainable development and SGDs, mainly SDG 7, 8, 11, 12 and 13.

Local governments worldwide face challenges to meet the Paris Climate Agreement 2015 and its targets amid the high CO2 emissions. Municipalities should play a major role in addressing climate actions and transform cities to more sustainable energy resources to attain SDGs. The European Union initiated a major project ‘Cleaner Energy Saving Mediterranean Cities’ (CES-MED) from 2011 to 2018, which is under the European Neighbourhood and Partnership Instrument (ENPI) to support South Mediterranean countries in developing Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plans—SECAP. This chapter presents strategic action plans to support and strengthen the capacity of local authorities to embrace and implement sustainable development and clean energy policies in line with existing national regulatory and legislative frameworks yet to understand the energy consumption in all sectors that utilize energy in the city, map energy consumption and CO2 emissions over 1 year, develop priority planned actions and establish climate actions. This chapter also highlights the assessment that was conducted on eight sectors such as transport, residential, tertiary and government buildings, agriculture, industry, waste, wastewater and tourism in two cities (Hurghada and Luxor) in Egypt. The assessment is based on the calculation of energy use and GHG emission according to the methodology of the European Commission Joint Research Centre (EC-JRC). The planned action and climate actions comprise of seven priority actions for the city of Hurghada and five priority actions for the city of Luxor including as follows: (1) transport, urban sustainable mobility master plan; (2) tourism, sustainable green boats; (3) tourism, green and sustainable hotels and resorts; (4) sustainable approach for governorate buildings; (5) sustainable approach for residential building; (6) solar energy development; and (7) green city awareness unit. However, in this paper, the first three priority actions are presented. Results in the city of Luxor (2015) indicate that total energy consumption and the corresponding global GHG emissions are estimated to be 4937 GWh/year and 1797 ktCO2eq/year, whereas these are 3338 GWh/year and 1338 ktCO2eq/year in Hurghada.

Cities around the world are facing many challenges in terms of population increase, energy consumption, transport, traffic congestion and water supply that result in huge waste, air pollution and colossal emissions of greenhouse gases, mainly CO2. Such huge increase of population would need housing and dwellings to accommodate such increase. Energy efficiency in buildings can result in mitigating energy use. In developing countries, building code compliance is not receiving enough attention from local authorities. The Energy Efficiency Code Compliance Checking (EECCC) is one of the most vital issues in making buildings low carbon, energy efficient and meet green standards, especially amid the urgent actions needed to offset climate change risks and attain sustainable development goals. This paper presents a BIM-based approach for automating compliance checking of the Egyptian code for enhancing energy efficiency in commercial buildings by virtue of visual programming language (VPL). The developed approach is capable to access data and information available in the BIM model during the preconstruction phase to automate the design evaluation complied with the energy code criteria. The VPL approach is flexible enough to modify the created nodes and links to build new or update the existing checking rules and thus facilitates the design checking process performed by designers, architects and urban designers.

Since the early start of universe and creation, man and creatures were enclitic by nature and well organized in harmony. Biomimicry as a concept is the mimicry and imitation of systems and strategies seen in the living world as a foundation for different fields, science and applications such as architectural field. Biomimicry has been applied through three levels, an organism level, behaviour level, and an ecosystem level, in terms of its forms, materials, construction methods, processes, or functions. Biomimicry is a source of innovation, particularly in creating more sustainable and potentially regenerative architecture. The problem is addressed according to the challenges that megacities face today, mainly high energy use, urban air pollution due to transport, large number of inhabitants’ activities, CO2 level and natural resources consumption in all sectors. So, improving cities’ infrastructure, mainly buildings, is one of the major steps needed to enhance livability in cities and mitigate climate change. The objective of this work is to assess the value of adopting biomimicry design concept, as a sustainable tool in architecture, due to its potential to create regenerative built environments. The research strategy is centred on a qualitative strategy and the method of data collection is a narrative and case studies’ types. It is also depends on a deductive approach. In this chapter, architectural examples are examined as a part of nature in order to explore the effect of nature on architecture. In addition, a comparative analysis of biomimicry approach depicting global applications of biomimicry in architecture is presented and discussed in terms of sustainability dimensions. Results of comparing the examined buildings show that the optimum building is CH2 Melbourne City Council House 2 in Australia which has the best sustainability features related to the biomimicry approach and linked to the climate change mitigation and adaptation.

Urban air pollution caused by transport, traffic congestion, and high energy use is considered one of the major challenges in megacities. This paper presents a study on the effect of using nanocoating on the buildings’ facades to improve air quality in cities. It also highlights the types and uses of nanocoating in various countries through a comparative analysis of global case studies. The objective of this work focuses on titanium dioxide as a self-cleaning photo-catalytic to mitigate pollution and improve indoor air quality. The methodology depends on inductive and analytical approaches: the first part includes a review on the nanotechnology and nanocoating, whereas the analytical part encompasses an assessment of global models for nanotechnology. The study analysed different buildings around the world that applied different types of Nanocoatings. The review of these buildings were divided according to their types of nanocoating, the country where most common types of buildings used and the country that has similar matching to Egypt’s climatic conditions. By analysing each building facades, it was helpful to extract the nanotechnologies, especially self-cleaning (photo-catalytic) that mitigate air pollution. In addition, assessments of the percentage of pollutants worldwide to identify the most important pollutants that are classified as top contaminants threatening human health, if the concentration in the internal spaces exceeds the limits recommended globally were highlighted. Finally, a review of the report of Ministry Environment, Egypt, and the maximum limits of pollutants at the global scale was also conducted, which led to the extraction of requirements to reduce contaminants in the internal spaces of buildings using titanium dioxide as self-cleaning (photo-catalytic). Results show the potential of titanium dioxide as a self-cleaning (photo-catalytic) to mitigate the level of pollution to enhance livability in cities.

Cities worldwide face many challenges, primarily climate change risks, urban population increase, and high resources use. The objective of this work is centered on revitalizing the abandoned factory of ex-Zanussi factory in the city of Conegliano, north of Venice Italy to be a city hub of sustainability. This paper present the attempt that was carried out to regenerate the old building to be green and sustainable site by utilizing urban farm technologies based on soilless solutions. Also, the retrofitted building and site aim at strengthening the capacity of the city of Conegliano economically, socially, and environmentally. The philosophy of planning and redesigning the site was centered on architectural and urban farming innovation. Many smart solutions were exploited onto the facades to turn this building and site into a live hub. The retrofitted building includes inspiring domes with revolving light wells to allow natural lighting of Conegliano and to reduce energy consumption, hence, mitigate CO2. Also, LED facades, ETFE cushions and rainwater harvesting as well as ZIP grow and recycled bricks. In addition, mobile application was used to enhance the learning experience, self-learning of urban farming, and what could be possibly done through the education facility. A business model, including the strategy, SWOT, operation cost, and a feasibility study were developed to best inform on the revenues from the project to reduce employment. Results indicate that by integrating agriculture with architecture using smart technologies could lead to economic growth, society integration, and achieve livability. Moreover, the diversity of users and mixed activities with nature are materialized. Finally, the project supports the city of Conegliano’s efforts in achieving successful interaction between technological and social innovation, and assists local governments in meeting Paris Agreement targets in Italy, yet attains SDGs, mainly SDG 7, 9, 11, 12, and 13.

Unplanned urban areas are considered one of the major challenges amid the fact that 70% of world’s population will be living in cities by 2050. This chapter presents a study conducted on one of the unplanned urban areas (informal areas) in Cairo, Egypt, in an attempt to provide guidelines for upgrading informal areas in developing countries based on sustainability indicators deduced from a comparative analysis of global case studies and a local case in Cairo, Egypt. The objective of this work focuses on informal areas (slums) from the economic, social, and environmental viewpoint to develop a surrounding community and increase the inward investment in the urban area. Qualitative and quantitative approaches were used in this study. The study presents an assessment of different informal areas around the world concerning sustainability and strategic environmental assessment (SEA). Two models developed by GIZ and Norman Foster were presented and compared according to a well-planned sustainable development goals checklist. In addition, a detailed assessment was also conducted to assess the local case study based on economic statistics and other sustainable development (SD) dimensions—livability, viability, and equitability. The SEA analysis includes three categories: urban, socioeconomic, and environmental. Results show that the potential of this assessment in upgrading informal areas concerning developing countries is promising. The SEA results also indicate that upgrading informal areas is a successful process when cooperation between authorities and residents exists to cover all SD pillars and the existence of ecosystems to ensure the resilience of urban areas in cities and attain sustainable development goals mainly SDG 11, SDG 12, and SDG 13.