AN EVALUATION CHECKLIST FOR HOUSING STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE LIVING CONDITIONS IN TRADITIONAL ENVIRONMENTS

Document Type : Scientific and technological

Author

Associate Professor of Architecture and Urban Design Faculty of Engineering Fayoum University, Egypt

Abstract

The district of Darb al-Ahmar, located in the south-western corner of the old city of Cairo -Egypt, contains some of the poorest of the city’s population suffering from high rates of unemployment, lack of fundamental community services, deteriorating buildings and low housing conditions, poor infrastructure and severe pollution.
In short, its living conditions were among the worst in Cairo. Nevertheless, Al-Darb Al-Ahmar experienced a housing intervention as a part of an integrated large project called “Economic Revitalization and Environ-mental Upgrading, An Integrated Action Plan in al-Darb al-Ahmar”.
The paper introduces and explains different housing strategies and approaches adopted by different Governments of developing countries over the past decades.
Then it Proposes an evaluation checklist for housing strategies and apply it to the housing strategies in Darb al-Ahmar which were adopted to improve the living and urban conditions of this traditional area, it assesses through a field survey whether these housing strategies are applies as a curative or preventive strategy.
The paper concludes with the lessons learnt from these applied strategies and its impact on the living condition of the inhabitants.

Keywords


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