No abstract

One of the most traditional and growing major cities in Saudi Arabia, Jeddah City established building design standards for villas and apartments in 1960. These design standards have changed several times in response to population increases. However, these standards have had adverse effects on streets: 1) motorization has created pressure on planned neighborhood streets, which resulted in an unsafe environment for pedestrians who must share the road with vehicles. 2) Because of the lack of availability apartments in mixed land-use neighborhoods, the municipality has allowed apartments to be built in desirable villa neighborhoods. Apartment and villa neighborhoods had been separated until 2007 because of privacy concerns. The new combination of buildings has resulted in a loss of privacy in villas overlooked by apartment buildings. Apartment residents are also parking their cars in villas' front yards because of a parking shortage. This study aims to 1) make spatial configuration arrangements of design standards, 2) define the spatial configuration combinations of streets and residential buildings by analyses of the expanding urbanization process, and 3) identify the issues with streets and determine a method to avoid such issues in future neighborhood planning. This study found: 1) a reality gap in design standards, such as the setback line and its relation to parking spaces, 2) unsuitable assumptions regarding car ownership per household, which resulted in a parking shortage, and 3) that resident use of sidewalk spaces as a semiprivate space negatively impacts the pedestrian environment.

During the urbanization process in Jeddah, evidenced by an annual population growth rate of 9.5%, vacant lots have existed in developed residential areas in spite of the housing shortage. This study aimed at investigating the housing shortage problem and suggesting future solutions based on a predictive formula through four tasks: (1) examining the issues induced by population growth; (2) assessing the extent to which articles in the Procedure Manual for Preparation of Residential Land Subdivision (PMPRLS) foster diversity within villa-type neighborhoods; (3) clarifying the extent of the applicability of these articles and the contribution of existing neighborhood patterns to the housing shortage problem; and (4) providing recommendations for developing each kind of villa-type neighborhood to contribute to resolving the housing shortage. The proposed development methods for villa-type neighborhoods were derived from a correlation analysis using PMPRLS-related indicators in all such neighborhoods (103 study sites) in Jeddah and from a predictive regression analysis. This study suggests that each neighborhood class can contribute to resolving the housing shortage problem. In conclusion, diversifying lot areas, population density, and lot widths in current villa-type neighborhoods would have a positive impact on the housing shortage problem.

Sustainability as a concept is tackled a lot in contemporary urbanism due to its importance; consequently, this led to the development of global trends toward achieving it. The current research attempts to identify how sustainability could be achieved in urban design and how to comply with the global concerns. This paper tackles the experiences of the global trends toward sustainability concepts in terms of its application by examining a range of contemporary global urban examples. It depends on a comparative analytical assessment using the ‘Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) for Neighborhood Development, LEED-ND’ assessment system in order to address the criteria measuring the sustainability indicators for these examples. These criteria are mainly grouped under the following categories: sustainable planning and design, water management, energy management, waste management, transportation and construction materials and resources. The research mainly aims to identify strategies and criteria assisting in achieving sustainability concept and implementation in urbanism at international level and their role in achieving sustainable urban settlements in Saudi Arabia. In order to achieve this aim, the research methodology includes the following: review of the global sustainability assessment tools, review of the ‘LEED-ND’ assessment system, analytical comparative assessment of ‘King Abdullah University of Science and Technology’ and ‘Masdar City’ according to the ‘LEED-ND’ system as case studies and identifying strategies and criteria that achieve sustainability in urban design and planning.