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Given the current energy crises, recent efforts have been directed at bringing energy efficiency and environmental awareness across the board into architectural education in Egypt. Although interest in sustainable design teaching and learning started more than 20 years ago at both post graduate and undergraduate level in Egypt, ecological illiteracy persists in architecture education. There is a large gap between what our schools of architecture offer, what the regulations currently specify, and what the market demands. This paper investigates the role of the graduation design studio in rooting an understanding of sustainability in architectural higher education, taking an experimental design studio case as an example. During this studio, the students developed a range of skills and techniques that were of value to their graduation projects and which will stand by them later as architects in the future. Students were able to experience climatic conditions and building technology in a specific context and associated with specific local vernacular architecture. Such experience was used to develop new adaptive and responsive climatic architecture approaches by means of physical hands on test cell models in a living lab environment. The design studio focuses on passive solar approaches suitable for a hot arid climate. The paper aims to show how this design studio could be a pilot model for green architectural education in Egypt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vernacular architecture is suffering all over the world and Egypt is one of the countries where the desert vernacular is facing a great risk of disappearance. The aim of the research is to introduce a methodological approach applying participatory action research (PAR) as a tool to help save the future of the currently deteriorating desert vernacular architecture. The aim was to help prevent further loss of desert vernacular architecture knowledge and to encourage vernacular know-how in becoming a living part of future building practices. To benefit from local know-how, a desert vernacular model house was constructed using PAR methods that engaged the local community throughout the design and building phases. The model house was constructed based on an understanding of desert vernacular architecture as well as of the urban fabric and building technology. The town of Balat in the Western Desert of Egypt was chosen as a location for this research work application. As this is an international problem the research developed several techniques within PAR, applied in a flexible way, giving the opportunity for further application in similar vernacular settlements suffering from similar problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The mounting climate change crisis and the rapid urbanization of cities have pressured many practitioners, policymakers, and even private investors to develop new policies, processes, and methods for achieving more sustainable construction methods. Buildings are considered to be among the main contributors to harmful environmental impacts, resource consumption, and waste generation. The concept of a circular economy (CE), also referred to as "circularity", has gained a great deal of popularity in recent years. CE, in the context of the building industry, is based on the concept of sustainable construction, which calls for reducing negative environmental impacts while providing a healthier indoor environment and closing material loops. Both vernacular architecture design strategies and circular economy principles share many of the same core concepts. This paper aims at investigating circular economy principles in relation to vernacular architecture principles in the built environment. The study demonstrates how circular principles can be achieved through the use of vernacular construction techniques and using local building materials. This paper will focus on Egypt as one of the oldest civilizations in the world, with a wide vernacular heritage, exploring how circularity is rooted in old vernacular settlements and how it can inspire contemporary circular practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]