Eco-Urbanity As a Theoretical Approach and Formative Scenario Analysis As an Assessment Tool for Urban Open Spaces

Hisham S Gabr (Professor, American University in Cairo, Department of Architecture, School of Sciences & Engineering)
Dalia M Al-Khateeb (Teaching Assistant, British University in Cairo, Department of Architecture, College of Engineering)

Quality of life in cities is deteriorating because of the damaging effects of poor practices on both the ecological and the built environment inflicted by entities and individuals. Eco-urban design, the focus of this paper, addresses two assumptions seeking improved quality of life in urban open spaces. The first is that if one wants truly sustainable cities, then one must develop a profoundly different ecological framework in which both urban elements and ecological variables are considered side by side; i.e. eco- urbanity. The second is that cities possess the creative power of transformation that can generate radically different ways of sustainable change, a much-needed paradigm shift particularly in open space design. Ecological urbanity, the combination of ecological design with open space production, put forward as a savior. This paper addresses the ideas and practices of open space production that may contribute to urban ecological change, the processes for that change, and finally the translation into urban ecological design checklists. Methods used to achieve the objectives combined qualitative & quantitative measures such as: A) Ecological variables and urban elements data that were gathered from literature, were combined with an on-site survey of a case study to identify, quantify, categorize and create a checklist; B) Semi-structured interviews to track users perception for ecological-urban variables with a sample size of (30) having different ages, genders and social backgrounds; C) Formative Scenario Analysis was the method used to transfer qualitative data to quantify the impact of Eco-urban variables within the selected open space case study. The resulting Eco-urban checklist and the assessment tools of this research would guide an ecologically oriented urban design process for open spaces.