الفهرس 
AcknowledgmentOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Communities of the future will be different from the ones people live in today due to different forces. Consequently people will alter the way they plan and develop their communities.
At stake is the quality of life, not only for present generation but also for the future generation. As it is said, ”We didn’t inherit this planet but we borrowed it from the future generation,
Therefore the planning and development process should aim to improve the places where people live. Sustainable Communities are the key to optimize the future.
The research’s approach considers Sustainable Development as a process that creates a relationship between human and environment.
Cities are not necessarily bad for nature unless they are designed to ignore nature. In many ways the environmental, social and economic crisis is a design crisis. Then urban design is the heart of the matter. The research concentrated on this dynamic process as a way to solve the problems people are facing these days.
No doubt those most under-developed countries are suffering from various urban, administrative and economic problems.
The research addresses the hypothesis that a good urban design is the key for any balanced and sustainable development and that the urban design of the neighborhood affects its sustainability.
• To achieve a wider understanding of Sustainable Development Concept.
• To put the vague ”Sustainable Development Concept’ in a way that could be addressed and applied to develop a comprehensive conceptual model in urban design based on the specific identified issues (guidelines - checklist) of Sustainable Urban Design.
• To attempt to develop a checklist and recommendations that must be taken in consideration to achieve a ”Sustainable Urban Design”.
• Explaining the reasons and the factors that helped in the shortage of public urban spaces and deterioration of the available spaces in the urban pattern, and its negative role in fulfilling the inhabitant’s needs.
• To present some suggestions, alternatives and guidelines (checklist) for reusing the unused spaces inside the urban pattern to compensate the shortage of social and recreational public spaces and re-structuring it within the urban fabric.
The importance of the research and its applications are summarized in the following points:
• The research has an additional scientific importance by trying to shape the visions of sustain ability and the principles of urban design that create communities that are more economically, socially and environmentally responsible.
• The sustainable urban design is a process about creativity and change. This research and its checklist and recommendations represent a contribution to this dynamic process.
• The research is an attempt to connect and relate urban design as a process and the vague concept of sustainability to form an integrated product represented in a high quality life and well-being to all people leading to Sustainable Urban Design.
• The research is trying to solve once of the problems that people facing daily, as they are in real need for the social communications and the recreational activities that should be practiced in the public urban spaces.
• The research helps in providing the opportunity for the inhabitants to practice their active social life and to take their rights in recreation that enriches their public experience and creates a sense of community and a sense of belonging to their city as a whole.
• The research’s approach towards already existing areas to provide these spaces within the urban pattern, as the existing urban development in these areas is a national fortune that shouldn’t be ignored or rebuilt.
To achieve the previous aims the research adopted a genuine approach and depended on various methodologies:
1. Analytical methodology: to highlight the theoretical background according to the different approaches.
2. Descriptive methodology: by explaining and describing the relationships and their interaction through studying the real examples.
3. Deductive methodology: by analyzing the data that has been collected and taken from real examples and deducting the conclusions and the alternatives by analyzing the different ways to apply these conclusions to emphasize the hypothesis of the study.
The research goes in a hierarchical sequence.
The research starts by addressing the problem and its reasons and the factors that helped in its appearance, leading to the theoretical hypothesis.
First, the research studies the urban design process and its main components (the neighborhood and the quarter).
The research documented and analyzed various examples and experiences, highlighting the advantages and the disadvantages of these experiences, leading to a number of lessons from these international experiences.
Second, the research addresses the concept of sustainability and the sustainable urban design paradigm, leading to an understanding to the issues of sustainable urban design which are the tools to achieve the features of Sustainable Urban Design.
Third, the research addresses the features of sustainable urban deign that are categorized into responsive and people-friendly environment.
At the end, from the previous studies, the research adopted a checklist which is considered a scientific addition in the field of sustainability and urban design. It also presents the conclusion and the recommendations that the research suggests to achieve Sustainable Urban Design.
The recommendations and the suggested guidelines to achieve Sustainable Urban Design are summarized in the following points:
• Think in Terms of Whole Systems:
Thinking about whole systems encourages planners to include the landscape (or cityscape) and its inhabitants in their approach. The community is involved in the planning with architects making its ideas.
• Bring back Public Space and Restore the local Landscape and Preserve Open Space
Public open spaces and local landscape has an ecological, environmental, social and aesthetic importance that helps to shape the sustainable development.
• Design and Build Green Homes and Humanize Cities:
Individual houses too, are being built in harmony with the surrounding environment. Green homes are designed to save natural resources.
• Bring Back Industry:
Industry was a big reason for the growth of cities. Industry may help to share resources efficiently, reusing raw materials as much as possible and minimizing waste.
• Think Regionally, Ecologically and Systematically:
Architects and urban planners should think regionally and go as far out as the edges of the country in all four directions. Cities are influenced by the surrounding media at the same time Nature’s design should become the baseline. Anything done must be measured against the test of improving the baseline. It is also important to think systematically as everything is connected to everything else. The architect cannot think about anyone element in isolation.
• Think Sense of Place, Civic Space and Think of Beauty:
In many situations, it doesn’t cost much more to make something beautiful, and it ends up being much more valuable. However, it generally does take greater skill, greater intellectual effort and greater care. At the end and not the last, the architect and the urban planner should remember the element of time.
• Ecosystem Thinking:
Ecosystem thinking emphasizes the city as a complex system which is characterized by flows as continuous processes of change and development. It regards aspects such as energy, natural resources and waste production as chains of activities that require maintenance, restoration, stimulation and closure in order to contribute to sustainable development.
• Respecting the site and setting:
Designers must design from a basis of understanding, and resist the temptation to import standard solutions.
• Respecting context and character:
This means understanding and respecting the vernacular and the local.
• Priority to the public realm:
This is vital - there must be hierarchy of spaces and get the buildings around them must relate to those spaces, otherwise the result will be just ’space left over after planning’.
• Ensuring linkage and ’fine gain’:
Layouts must work to make walking easy. This can be done by design in new development; and it can be done in existing places too, the aim is to rebalance the place, as it is experienced and used by those on foot (or cycle) and those in car.
• Using land efficiently:
Designers should be looking to create and encourage intensity of activity, use and form; they should relate it logically to transport and services, with the highest intensity at the most accessible places, by all transport modes.
• Mixing activities.
Development can be based on accepting the co-existence of most modern activities.
• Mixing tenures:
The lessons of the past stress how important it is to avoid single- tenure neighborhoods, and to build in flexibility at block, street, and neighborhood levels.
• Building durably:
Design at both block level and for individual buildings will tend to be more durable if they follow adaptable flexible models.
• Building to high quality:
They should be durable in a second sense, too-built to last, not a one-shot 300year life.
• Respect the environmental stock:
L All development has some environmental impact: layouts and designs must minimize that impact, and maximize the sustainability potential.
• Cooperation and Partnership:
Sustainability is a shared responsibility. Cooperation and partnership between different levels, organizations and interests is therefore crucial. Therefore sharing experiences, cross-disciplinary working, partnerships and networks, community consultation and participation and awareness rising are key elements. Integration, cooperation are key concepts for achieving urban sustainability.
These recommendations form a vital part of re-establishing healthy lively cites at the core of communities and economy and are a basis for integrating good urban design principles into planning and architectural practice.
And as designers, they need to:
• Insist on quality, insist on design.
• Work together, as fellow professionals.
• Learn from good practice .