Program Description

Driven by the current urgency of building more environmentally friendly buildings and cities, the environmental Architecture and Urbanism Program (ENVR) aims at preparing architects and urban designers specialized in environmental design. Graduates are capable of understanding the relationship between humans and buildings and between buildings and their environment. They can integrate all the aspects dealing with the built environment and how it is planned, designed, used, furnished, landscaped, managed, and valued by the society in their creative thinking while dealing with complex architectural and urban environment problems. The program introduces students to building science and enables them to conceive the basic concepts of sustainable architecture and urbanism. They are trained to balance functional and ecological demands when developing policies or designs for new construction. Graduate will be able to deal with modern techniques and tools for learning and linking theory and practice. All efforts are directed towards achieving environmental architecture and urbanism.

Career Prospects

The acquired skills through the program qualifies the graduates to occupy a wide range of jobs, fulfilling the market’s diversity of needs. They can work as architects or urban designers whether in multi-national and local companies or in architectural, urban design firms and environmental design consultancies. Moreover, graduates will be equipped to work in fields of interior design, visualization using computer graphics, 3D modelling, and model making. Specializations extend as well to dimensions of project/construction management, site supervision, and quantity surveying. The ENVR graduates can deal with environmental building assessment techniques and be aware of issues related to building energy efficiency, net zero systems and net plus systems. The current market in Egypt is thriving for such kind of interdisciplinary-skilled graduates who have strong background in environmental design that is highly needed nowadays.  

Program Concentrations

There are no specified concentrations in this Program.

Agreements with another University

The program is in partnership with the University of East London (UEL), United Kingdom for a Bachelor Dual Degree. Students joining this agreement will pay an additional fee, to substitute expenses for the external Quality Audits/Moderation Boards that will take place in Egypt. The Graduates should receive two B.Sc. certificates, one from the University of East London, and one from Ain Shams University. Students are allowed to study a full year or more in London with a 10% reduction in the UK tuition fees.

Furthermore, the program under the ASU umbrella is part of the CNRD – Centres for Natural Resources and Development- project, which is one of 5 centres of Excellence in Germany under the Exceed program. The CNRD is coordinated by Cologne University of Applied Sciences (CUAS – Germany) and includes 13 universities partners from Indonesia, Chile, Mexico, Nepal, Egypt, Jordan, Kenya, Ethiopia, Sudan, Bangladesh, Vietnam, and Brazil. The CNRD is supported by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, Exceed and DAAD.

Program Competences

In addition to the competences for all Engineering Programs (A-Level), the Environmental Architecture and Urbanism Program graduate must be able to (D-Level):

• Create aesthetically pleasing and technically sound architectural and urban designs by using the architectural and urban planning principles, history and theories, technologies, economics, human sciences and local culture and heritage.
• Produce designs that meet building users’ requirements through studying the relationship between people and buildings, and between buildings and their environment.
• Prepare design project briefs and documents and analyse the context of the architecture in the construction industry, including the architect’s role in the processes of bidding, procurement of architectural services, and building production.
• Solve problems and creatively design sustainable building schemes or urban contexts that demonstrate awareness and integration of information and processes in project work by using building environmental systems and management together with the underlying concepts and theories.
• Realize the process of sustainable building and urban design and their various components through the integration of structural design, construction, technology and engineering problems associated with building designs.
• Coordinate and monitor the production of information and data from a variety of sources, including drawings, specifications, codes of practice, related to principals of environmental architecture and urbanism.
• Apply appropriate mathematical and computer-based methods for modelling and analysing environmental design problems.
• Judge engineering decisions considering balanced costs, benefits, risks, safety, quality, reliability, and environmental impact, while having adequate knowledge of industries, organizations, regulations and procedures involved.
• Produce professional technical and workshop drawings to transform the concepts into buildings using traditional drawing tools and computer-aided drawings’ techniques, as well as building information modelling techniques.
• Exchange knowledge and skills with engineering sectors and industrial sectors working in the field of environmental control.

Required Courses

In order to get a Bachelor of Science Degree in this program, and to satisfy the Program Competences, the following set of courses need to be completed.