Albert Dupagne

Building traditions of Mzab facing the challenges of re-shaping of its built form and society

Abstract The vernacular building of Mzab settlements shows the optimization, over many centuries of the performance of locally available materials within the climatic conditions of southern Algeria, designed to serve the specific needs of “Ibadits” culture. Mzab demonstrates to a marked degree some peculiarities of Islamic culture, especially in town planning and dwelling design. It provides a good example of how a site may be exploited to assist defense, to benefit from summer breezes and to promote natural drainage, while providing shelter from the sun and adapting generally to severe local climate. Two main concepts can be used to explain the ways the traditional Mzab dwellings are organized and the settlements are planned; these are centrality and barriers. The application of these two concepts by Mzab traditional society persisted until the last few decades when it has undergone profound changes in the re-shaping of its built form and society. These changes were the result of the evolution of political, economical and social factors of the country as a whole and the aspiration of Mzab society to a luxurious and modern life. New modern urban forms have, consequently, appeared and disrupted traditional building design and planning practices. In fact, Mzab is living in a period when everything is in a state of agitation—everything seems to be undergoing a change. In this paper, the knowledge and understanding of the qualities and advantages of the traditional design of Mzab settlements are analyzed. The decline of traditional building design and urban form, and its causes are discussed, and remedies are proposed.

COST-uce, Action C4: Management and Information Application Development in Urban Civil Engineering

COST is an acronym for CO -operation in S cience and T echnology. It is a DG XII RTD Action aimed at facilitating international co-operation in numerous domains of research and development. The specific domain covered by the C4 action concerns the analysis and improvement of the general management process of the urban construction project.

European Passive Solar Modelling Sub-Group

The task of selecting reliable computer programs to simulate the performance of passive solar buildings has been assigned to a specialized subgroup. This group has selected a detailed program for large computers, which will be used as a reference for the analysis of a set of simple models. those for mini/micro computers, pocket calculators, and manual calculations.

METHODOLOGY FOR LOW-COST HOUSING DESIGN INCLUDING NEW ENERGY-SAVING CONCEPTS

The paper describes a design methodology for subsidized housing. Its main objective is to introduce energy constraints in the building design process itself without disturbance for the architects creativity. These features used through simple computations permit to estimate the thermal consequences of the design decisions that are to be taken during the different design steps.

Computer aided design of low-energy houses: practial experience of designing, building and monitoring 25 houses on site

A first research work carried out for the Commission of the European Communities has produced a manual design methodology (1). Mainly orientated to the conception of low-cost houses, it integrates some fundamental thermal concepts into the design process.