Appropriate energy design guidelines for new desert housing in Egypt: "A case study for cluster houses at Sadat City".

Abstract

The tremendous increase of population in Egypt has caused the Egyptian government to rethink its settlement policy by planning for the development of new desert communities in remote arid regions outside of the Nile Valley. Presented here is a methodology for generating appropriate energy design guidelines for desert housing in these new communities. The methodology also takes into account the culture, climate and economy of the country. This interdisciplinary study starts by examining the current government national policy for regional and urban development in Egypt with emphasis on the new desert settlement programs in general and on the Sadat City in particular. The criteria which determines human thermal comfort requirements for the indigenous people of Egypt is then presented. This part of the study also includes a climatic analysis of Egypt showing the major climatic components, the factors modifying the climate, the country's major climatic zones, and microclimatic considerations. In the next chapter on energy analysis, the concepts and the mathematical basis of the methodology are presented. The process is based on balancing the incremental cost/benefit of conservation and passive solar designs in an optimum mix yielding the best performance and economic advantages for any given set of weather characteristics. Finally, the method is generalized and reduced to a set of formulas which generate energy guidelines for conservation levels with selected passive solar system(s). A computer model of the method is developed and energy guidelines for six major locations in Egypt are illustrated. In conclusion, a preliminary design for low-energy cluster houses at the new desert community Sadat City is developed using the computer generated guidelines for that region. The energy results are then validated using the CalPas3 energy simulation program, and a matrix is also developed for assessing the socio-cultural aspects of the design model.