Green Rating for Urban Developments in Arid Zones: An Accreditation Case Study in Egypt

Abstract

The last three decades have witnessed a radical change to the urban planning field, since the new urbanism charter gave instructions for livable neighborhoods until rating systems for green buildings and sustainable communities emerged to adapt and enable built environmentsto response to future needs.The sustainability concept is now well known worldwide, but still need more focus on its application in many countries like Egypt, especially on the practice level. Therefore, a recently constructed neighborhood case study in Greater Cairo is accredited using LEED for neighborhood (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design)to draw the attention towards our built environment in such mid-latitude sites and derive implications simply for what could have been done to increase our communities level of friendship to environment. Results were scheduled using the LEED ND checklist. The results proved the case study to be "not certified" and recommendations were given to reaccredit the project considering the as built situation onsite.