Towards Environmental Sustainability of Existing Buildings in Egypt : Case Study of the Building of the Faculty of Engineering – Department of Architecture – Al-Azhar University – Cairo

Abstract

Existing buildings have significant negative impacts on the environment by consuming large amounts of energy in these buildings. Modern building technology has witnessed a great development of building materials aimed at reducing negative impacts on the environment. These developments emphasize the sustainable use of buildings; studied at the local level (Egypt). The Egyptian state is taking serious steps to direct the construction industry towards sustainability. In fact, many studies deal with the importance of sustainability in the field of building and construction, but few of these studies address the role of locally available building materials in sustainability. There are also few studies on the role of locally used building materials in saving energy consumption. The research problem came from this point, which deals with the inability of the existing architectural facilities in Egypt to play their role in achieving the concepts of sustainability. In fact, existing buildings in Egypt do not benefit from the environmental potential for sustainability. This research aims to try to reach the effectiveness of achieving sustainability for existing buildings in reducing energy consumption, and increasing their compatibility with environmental specifications according to the concepts of sustainability.