Integrating Bioarchitectural Approaches in the Design of Universities’ Halls of Residence to Guarantee Students’ Well-Being دمج اتجاهات العمارة الحيوية في تصميم السكن الطلابي للجامعات لضمان رفاهة الطلاب

Abstract

Universities' halls of residence are integrated educational communities committed to providing safe and healthy environment for living-together students with different cultures, to encourage them develop their abilities and motivate them. The main factor that helps creating a built environment that achieves these goals is by confirming the harmonious relationship between occupants, built environment and nature. However, this was not the only reason that prompted the interest of today's architects to draw inspiration from nature's systems, but also the sustainability's focus on "automated" solutions. So came Bioarchitecture and its approaches as the answer to emphasize that harmonious relationship to guarantee occupants' well-being; subjectively or objectively. But to date, the vast majority of studies of bioarchitectural design, especially biophilic ones, have focused on the design of specific environments, with a lack of research on the benefits of bioarchitectural approaches in university environments. Proceeding from this and from the current state of the majority of public halls of residence in Egypt nowadays, the research presents a rehabilitation design proposal for Building (B) of the hall of residence of Alexandria University (Smouha), through the perspective of bioarchitectural approaches, a design that meets the parameters identified to guarantee students' comfort; psychological and physiological in its built environment. To conclude that bioarchitecture is a vital applicable aspect to today's designs whose different approaches offer endless solutions that suit different types of projects, whether those that have not yet been designed or those that are being rehabilitated.