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This paper focuses on an Egyptian experience of participation in the design of a vegetable and fruit market. In 1999, the re-design of the Tablita Market based on community participation was proposed as one of the components of a larger encompassing project aiming at the economic revitalization and environmental upgrading of Al-Darb Al-Ahmar; a physically deteriorating district located in the medieval city referred to as Historic Cairo. The idea was that the upgrade of this major local market would serve in promoting comprehensive environmental and physical upgrading of the whole Al-Darb Al-Ahmar. The funding for upgrading the Tablita Market required the vendors’ participation in the new design.

This paper presents the participatory design process that we initially designed as well as its development and adjustment during implementation. The aim is to discuss to what extent the conflicts of interest and power relations among actors, inflamed by the historic dimension of the place, affect the process of participatory design. What type of reactions did the participatory design process provoke among the vendors and other actors including the local government authorities? Are there winners and losers in participatory design?

In preparation for the community participation workshops, the findings from the Needs Assessment research were analyzed using the concept of Functional Opportunities (Shehayeb, 1995) to show the relation between the advantages and disadvantages, problems and concerns expressed by the different actors. These were then summarized into six categories of Functional Opportunities that represent the Goals of the vendors. The means of achieving these goals were to be explored in a series of workshops with different groups of vendors. The criteria for selecting each group was to mix in awareness levels, but not power, so as to give an opportunity for the less influential vendors to express their opinion and not be dominated by the more powerful leaders of the vendor community. A scaled model of the existing Tablita Market was constructed as an aid to help the participants spatially represent their ideas. After implementing the first and second group workshops, the reactions to those events necessitated a revision of the process as well as a readjustment among ourselves as to the goals and impacts of this process. It turned out to be much more than a process involving a group of vendors in the re-design of a market place.

Much research into housing concentrates on the dwelling as a place of shelter for the household, as a unit to accommodate basic domestic activities or as an asset to secure and facilitate social reproduction. However, the dwelling is more than an enclosed private space; it involves a diversity of indoor and outdoor spaces that house a multitude of activities to fulfil latent functions and meanings. The scarcer the resources of the residents, the more critical it is to maximize the use-value of the home environment, and key ways to add value is for the dwelling to become a place to house income generating activities, a place to produce one's food or a place to accommodate changes in household structure over time. In such cases, public and private space use within the home range is intensified through multiple usage, often changing diurnally or seasonally to afford the occupants increased adaptability and maximum use value. Drawing upon empirical data from Egypt, Colombia and Indonesia, this paper proposes a conceptual framework to analyse the diverse manifestations of this phenomena and to identify lessons for designers and policy makers concerned with making housing more appropriate and affordable.

Few public places are designed with due consideration to the needs and preferences of teens. Teens in public spaces are often viewed with apprehension from other user groups. Teens hanging out in public spaces are always observed with caution and are sometimes associated with negative behaviour by other community members. In designing public spaces that are suitable for the teens and not alienating them to other members of the community, it is necessary to understand how teens perceive their environment and what they expect from it. The psychological, social and emotional development determines the teens’ preferences regarding public spaces. This research attempts to understand how teens perceive and value those places and the factors that influence teens’ preferences in public spaces. This study aims to deduce some factors that influence teens’ preferences and behaviour from an environmental psychology perspective and then test these factors on a sample of teenagers in an Egyptian setting.

An empirical study was conducted with teens in two districts in Cairo, Egypt: “Dokki” and “Sheikh Zayed,” to understand how teens perceive their neighbourhoods, identify preferred places and discern factors that influence their preferences. A sample of 67 teens, aged between 13 and 19 years old, in which 31 were males, and 36 were females, completed a survey that allowed teens to identify and rate their experiences. This occurred using a map-based mobile application to foster more active engagement by participants, in which they identified their favourite places, the behaviour associated with these places, what teens do there – when, and with whom, as well as their rating of the place.

The most important conclusion drawn from this study was that teens’ preferences are linked to their cognitive, emotional and social development. They influence and are associated with essential aspects such as the sense of freedom, sense of safety, self-identity, enjoyment, thrill-seeking and peer relationships. Therefore, it is important to adopt a new perspective to the design of public spaces to create teen-friendly places.

Adopt a new perspective to public space design to create teen-friendly places by adopting an environmental psychology lens to shed light on the social and psychological dimensions of the built environment.

Residing in a densely populated urban area possesses its allure; nonetheless, it can significantly impact physical and mental well-being owing to the persistent stress and information overload inherent in urban settings. This study aims to introduce a neuro-urbanism framework that can guide urban planners and designers in quantitatively evaluating individuals' responses to virtual simulated environments.

Our study consisted of two phases after randomly selecting six locations representing three types of urban areas in Bratislava, Slovakia: urban spaces, urban streets, and public parks. First, we conducted a Mentimeter live polling (dialogic survey fusion), followed by an experiment involving volunteer participants from the Slovak University of Technology. This experiment employed an electroencephalogram (EEG) with virtual reality headsets to virtually explore participants' responses to the selected locations.

The EEG signal analysis revealed significant differences in relaxation levels across the selected locations in this study. Urban streets with commercial activities promote mental well-being more effectively than public parks, challenging the preconception that restorative environments are exclusively confined to public parks.

The results demonstrate a replicable neuro-urbanism framework comprising three distinct stages: problem-based technology rooted in neuroscience, experimental setup and deliverables, and identification of restorative environments.

Neuro-urbanism is an emerging field focused on addressing global urban challenges by examining the impact of urban living on stress levels and mental well-being. The restorative environment approach has been widely applied to measure stress and mental health outcomes. Although there is a recognised relationship between neuro-urbanism and restorative environments, further exploration of literature is needed. This paper aims to propose a conceptual urban restorative model that leverages neuro-urbanism to explore the potential of various urban space typologies and their associated urban design qualities in fostering restorative environments.

This review article utilised VOSviewer to conduct a bibliometric analysis of data from Scopus and PubMed, focusing on neuro-urbanism and restorative environments. Our study explored the intersection of neuroscience and urbanism in designing environments that enhance mental well-being by mapping keyword co-occurrences and analysing citation networks. It identified research clusters, emerging trends and literature gaps, offering a detailed overview of how these fields intersect and influence each other.

Our findings have revealed significant links between these fields, paving the way for the proposed restorative model. This model, derived from the literature, outlines the types of restorative environments, managing domains and theories integrating intangible and tangible urban design qualities using features and variables.

This study has limitations, as the proposed urban restorative model was developed using data from a literature review of databases such as Scopus and PubMed without testing its application in a real-world case study. Nevertheless, the urban restorative model provides valuable insights that can support urban designers, planners and public health organisations in evaluating restorative environments, which may enhance mental well-being and reduce stress in urban settings.

This research contributes to the broader understanding of how urban design can influence mental well-being and provides actionable keys for improving the quality of life in urban settings.

Affordable housing has long been an important planning and design concern in large urban areas and around the peripheries of major cities where population growth has led to an increasing demand for descent housing environments. The issue of affordability has attracted researchers and scholars to explore planning and design determinants, financing mechanisms, cultural and social issues, and construction and building techniques. This interest has been the case for several decades since affordable housing themes have offered a rich research area that involves many paradoxes that keep presenting challenges for planners, architects, and decision makers. Housing costs are increasing in most cities and incomes are not increasing at the same rate. Governments, on the other hand, are unable to provide sufficient housing stock to bridge the gap between demand and supply due to decreasing housing budgets and the lack of investment.

Since public and private spaces are generally considered to be the fundamental building blocks for residential settings, this study draws attention to the need to consider and detail threshold spaces as one of the key aspects for accomplishing sociocultural needs, restoration and well-being in the residential environment. Understanding the function and uses of these spaces allows us to appreciate their benefits which are often neglected. This research particularly focuses on the social dimension of one fundamental threshold pattern; the Cairene balcony.

A qualitative anthropological approach was adopted in this research where in-depth interviews with female residents (n = 46) were conducted in three local contexts in Cairo, Egypt in parallel with non-participatory observation. The present piece focuses on the results elicited from the female residents’ interviews.

Irrespective of the income group, sociocultural background and context, dominating factors influencing women’s perception of the role of the Cairene balcony were commonly present. These included issues of; well-being and restoration, the phenomenon of personalization and identity, functional and communicative purposes, safety and security and privacy and control. Overall, the majority of interviewees stressed the significance of the balcony as a prominent source of prospect and an impermissible part of the residential environment.

The fact that little research has been conducted to examine the everyday use of the balcony and the role it plays in Cairene homes makes this “dedicated” research piece a valuable addition.

Many of the heritage adaptive reuse projects in Islamic Cairo did not report success. Existing evaluations are usually drawn from a singular perspective – such as preservation and sustainability. The purpose of this paper is to generate a comprehensive assessment framework of adaptively reused heritage buildings that is specifically developed for the case of Islamic heritage of Cairo.

This paper depends on an extensive literature review about primary goals of adapting heritage for reuse. Related to each goal, multiple criteria of assessment are derived from literature, and then explained to mention worldwide benchmarks in that field.

A successful heritage adaptation project shall aim to achieve: building preservation, success of new function, and local community development. The framework is able to organize the adaptive reuse literature in general, and to specifically provide direct goals and guidelines in the case of Cairo.

In research and practice, priorities of heritage reuse vary from case-to case; however, this paper considers all assessment criteria to be of equal importance.

In order to apply and technically develop this assessment framework, future research can describe methodologies for assessment and to set optimum quantitative and/or qualitative indicators’ thresholds for each criterion.

This paper highlights that new uses of heritage buildings should be assessed for having a role in the upgrading the socio-economic milieu of the people living. The new functions shall act as a stimulant for economic upraising and social reinforcement for the local business and small traditional industries.

The framework can be used as a checklist in either the planning of adaptive reuse projects or the evaluation of already completed ones. The framework shall assist governmental institutions, developers, owners, community groups, practitioners, and others in bringing forward successful adaptation schemes in Cairo.

Urban planning in the Global South is insufficiently discussed in research. In addition to the global lack of utilization of research in practice, this lack of discussion resulted in an apparent gap between research, practice, governmental policies and education particularly in the Global South. The paper explores the inconsistency of interest between policymakers, practitioners and researchers by reviewing their themes of interest comparatively. The paper investigates the case study of Egypt, which recently faces a new regime with optimistic urban agendas and examines the research publication that coincided with it.

A scientometric analysis is conducted on all urban planning publications in Egypt between 2016 and 2022 using the software ‘CiteSpace’. The analysis illustrates the dominating research interests using the publications keyword.

The analysis revealed a distinct interest between researchers, who were more invested in themes like ‘planning policies’, ‘informal settings’, ‘urban expansion and growth’ and ‘urban governance and management’, while policymakers were more devoted to themes related ‘satellite cities or new cities’, ‘public transit and transit networks’, ‘informal settings’ and ‘urban expansion and growth’. The themes of interest are displayed in network analysis for a comparative analysis with other aspects like practices, governmental policies and education.

The research utilizes all research publications in the field (in a selected period) to develop a study of the research interest in the field of urban planning in Egypt during the recent years. In addition, it uses novel scientometric software to assist in analysing existing publications to produce new findings and trends.