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Sustainable design is a new paradigm to localize sustainable development. The Union Internationale des Architectes (UIA) prepared guidelines for architectural projects to contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Using the theory of change, the Department of Architecture at Menofia University set the 2023 graduation project to explore the possibility of adopting sustainable design principles and integrating SDGs into architectural education. The paper documents and evaluates the experiment to drive best practices and lessons learned.

The paper utilized a mixed design strategy utilizing qualitative and quantitative techniques. It gathered data from various sources, including a student questionnaire and unstructured interviews with external examiners. Data analysis included frequency distribution and sentiment, content and thematic analyses. Triangulation is applied, combining data, investigator and methodological triangulation to enhance the paper’s validity.

Integrating SDGs into the 2023 graduation project contributed to students’ understanding of sustainable urban development. Students demonstrated varying receptiveness to guidelines, focusing mainly on the SDGs (1-5, 7, 8, 10 and 11). Gender equality and economic empowerment struck a chord with the mostly female students, acknowledging that securing well-paying jobs is a way to escape the cycle of poverty. Challenges included limited resources and time constraints, a scarcity of Arabic reading materials and misunderstandings among students and staff, thus prompting collaborative efforts beyond standard studio hours. Despite challenges, the initiative contributes to sustainable urban development, providing valuable lessons learned and insights.

Integrating sustainable design principles into architectural education is doable but involves a complex process requiring careful preparation. The value lies in the tangible impact on sustainable urban development, emphasizing the importance of incorporating sustainable development concepts throughout the architectural curriculum. The authors advocate for increased awareness and education among stakeholders and suggest areas for future research by exploring a broader implementation and assessing the long-term effects on students’ mindsets and practices. Sustainable development is a means toward community prosperity, and the inquiry highlights the collective responsibility of scholars, practitioners and students in shaping a better future.

Sustainable development requires a mental shift that induces behavioral modification. Education is central to sustainable development as it alters an individual's worldview. Egypt is a signatory to Agenda 2030 and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Many Egyptian educational institutions have adopted the universal trend of incorporating sustainability and SDGs into their curricula. A recent UN assessment reports that Egypt faces challenges in meeting most SDGs. Therefore, this article investigates how students' knowledge, attitude and practices reflect their awareness regarding sustainability? Has their education induced any behavioral changes? What is the instructors' role in mainstreaming sustainability?

The article investigates the progression of environmental consciousness among Egyptian architectural students and its relationship to sustainability. There are two sources of data: (1) documents, including study plans and course descriptions, and (2) a questionnaire developed and distributed electronically among students from public, private and international schools. The authors used a variety of data analysis methods. They used SPSS for statistical analysis to determine similarities among the students and correlations between variables. They then used Atlas.ti to analyze curricula, study plans and student replies to open-ended questions.

The interrogated curricula equate sustainability with the environment, as some consider energy conservation equivalent to environmental conservation and protection. Others emphasized environmental control issues as measures of green architecture. The results suggest that students' knowledge and awareness are not conducive to practices expected to yield sustainable designs. The impact of architectural and planning education on altering their attitudes is minimal. Public schools treat students as passive objects, whereas international and some private schools attempt to adhere to the globally accepted architectural pedagogy ideals, transforming the student's mindset.

Education in architecture is crucial to achieving sustainable development because it prepares future professionals who can contribute to sustainability through their practice. The findings show that architectural and planning education has a negligible effect on students' knowledge and attitudes, which influence their practices. Reforming architectural and planning education is a requirement to accomplish the SDGs. The reform requires instructors to introduce students to the theory of knowledge and critical thinking, thus enabling graduates to be competitive in global labor markets. Reforming education will direct the research agenda of staff members and graduate students toward contemporary research problems.

The research method that mixes qualitative and quantitative methods of inquiry is the first aspect of the originality of the research. Linking teaching methods in the studio with instructors' understanding of sustainability can explain why sustainable development is not clear in architectural and planning education in Egypt, which influences both professional practice and scientific research. Finally, the paper highlights the role of universities to be sustainable in embedding the concept and changing students' mindsets, thus improving Egypt's stand on the SDGs index.

Sustainable urban development involves integrating intelligent technology into urban planning to promote economic growth, social services, and environmental preservation. It fosters inclusiveness, safety, resilience, and sustainability in urban environments. However, this strategy faces challenges balancing economic growth, social equality, and environmental preservation. Design experts must balance economic development with sustainability preservation to achieve sustainable urban development. They depend on technology for smarter communities. The paper aims to identify the criteria for sustainable urban design and design professionals' bias and their awareness of using the fourth industrial revolution technologies.

The research methodology involves a document review to identify criteria and weights for sustainable urban design. A questionnaire was conducted with 30 design professionals to understand their preferences and biases. A hierarchical framework was created, and pairwise comparisons were computed using an AHP Online System. The weight of each criterion was calculated by aggregating normalized pairwise values within each row and dividing by the total number of cells. The Consistency Ratio (CR) was determined by aggregating the values in the row to produce the weighted aggregate value for each principle.

The document review emphasizes the significance of sustainable urban design, livability, intelligence, and environmental conservation in sustainable communities. However, participants often overlook these aspects, focusing on comfort, privacy, security, and exclusiveness. They also ignore the need for smart city technologies and environmental protection. This lack of understanding may hinder Egypt’s achievement of SDG11.

The paper’s main limitation is the small sample size and composition, as all participants were Egyptians working in Egypt or the Arabian Gulf region. The findings cannot be generalized, and future research could involve a team from different regions. Egypt needs to address the lack of knowledge and awareness of sustainable urban design principles among design professionals to achieve SDG 11 goals. This can be achieved through educational initiatives, readjusting priorities towards sustainability, harmonizing policy and practice with sustainable urban design principles, and interdisciplinary teamwork. Design professionals should customize their methods to suit local requirements and ecological circumstances.

The paper reveals that many design professionals lack an integrated and holistic understanding of sustainable urban design principles that the document review outlined. Their responses and practices reveal an incomplete understanding of sustainable urban development, requiring attention to organizing the profession, training practitioners, and reforming planning education. The paper shows that AHP has the potential to serve as a suitable instrument for decision-making; nonetheless, it is essential to exercise caution when interpreting its outcomes.

The article attempts to shed light on the social aspects of research that deal with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and sustainable cities. The aim is to offer a global view of these facets' evolution and to provide information on people-centered smart cities.

The research is qualitative. A systematic bibliometric approach is a framework for the research. The unit of analysis is publications on SDGs and Smart Cities (SCs) indexed in Scopus. The authors used VOSviewer text mining functionality to construct co-occurrence networks of socially related critical terms extracted from textual data. The co-occurrence of keywords presents a valuable method and process for attaining in-depth analysis and fast comprehension of trends and linkages in articles from a holistic approach.

Social media, social sustainability and social capital are the three multifaceted social keywords that co-occur in SDGs and SCs. The paper provides a brief compendium of resources and frameworks to build a socially sustainable smart city.

The retrieval date was on 15 August 2019. The authors used the same search query for new papers released in 2019 and afterwards to update their findings. The authors collected 657 documents on SCs, compared to 2,975 documents about SDGs demonstrating that their findings are still trending in the same direction, emphasizing the importance of the research topic. SCs' social aspects are still chartered areas that require the attention to future research.

The authors’ decision to use two separate data sets for SCs and SDGs data files helps to provide a more comprehensive picture of the research landscape. It may identify areas where research is lacking or needs future research. The authors present an integrative agenda for a smart city to be socially sustainable. Innovative approaches to urban planning are required to empower the place and context and improve the users' satisfaction, where innovative solutions enable smart, sustainable and inclusive societies. Infrastructure governance is a critical keystone. It could guarantee that public investments contribute to sustainable urban development while enhancing city resilience, particularly in facing climate change and inclusive growth challenges.

This paper examines the attempt to develop smart, sustainable cities (SSC) in the Arab region. The paper identifies four barriers: 1) infrastructural need for technological advances and availing information and transparency regarding the functioning of the administration; 2) high rates of adult illiteracy and lack of political participation; 3) methods of data collection, validity, reliability, and analysis, which are of utmost importance for decision-making are not always precise and rigorous; and 4) bound rationality that affects the planning process, thus hampering proper planning. Attempting to develop an SSC is not possible in a country where the majority are illiterate and poor. These attempts could lead to the loss of public space, social segregation, and dysfunctional democracy.

From scholars' view, there are various research approaches to investigate the city and its spaces. However, there is a need to examine the city and its spaces from the residents' perspective. Hermeneutic phenomenology might be applicable and valuable. Also, communication is a requirement for successful participatory planning and spatial analysis. Architects, urban designers and landscape architects must possess intersubjective competencies to communicate and engage with the public. Hermeneutic knowledge is the source for developing these intersubjective capabilities essential for communication. All design preparation and execution steps require distorted-free communication, starting with defining a problem and ending with implementation, monitoring and evaluation.

The paper aims to test the applicability of hermeneutic phenomenology in urban studies. The author examines the right to the city and producing space in Cairo, Egypt. Besides web pages, documents and social networks, data sources vary, including proverbs and poems. Semiotics is the qualitative research technique used to interrogate the collected material using qualitative data analysis software.

Cairo's growth is the outcome of the division of labor, administration and power dynamics. Egyptians' right to take part in Cairo's planning and management is the issue. Hermeneutic phenomenology is an approach to perform spatial environmental investigations. It could inform decision-making, ensure the planning process's validity and guarantee people's ownership of planned projects.

Phenomenology allows for inside and outside the understanding of a spatial phenomenon. The current focus of architectural and planning schools' curricula is on technical actions. These schools consider increasing the dose of social sciences in their curricula. Educators could teach students how to use hermeneutic phenomenological research methodologies. Using hermeneutic knowledge in communication encourages public engagement in formulating and implementing projects, thus ensuring their long-term viability.