Architecture Research Staff

• Tamer Gado
• Michael Spens

Egyptian Cultural and Educational Bureau, London

Environmental Design of Building (EDoB) Lab

PhD student, Environmental Design of Buildings(EDoB)Research Unit, Dundee School of Architecture, University of Dundee, UK (Assistant Lecturer on a sabbatical leave, Minia University, Egypt)

1. Environmental design of buildings
2. Thermal comfort & Energy efficiency in hot climates
3. Natural ventilation as a passive cooling strategy
4. Buildings' monitoring
5. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modelling and simulation

1. Gado, T. and M. Osman, Investigating natural ventilation inside walk-up housing blocks in the Egyptian desert climatic design region. International journal of ventilation, 2009. 8(2): p. 145-160.
2. Gad, T., M. Mohamed and M. Osman, Investigating the intelligence of the low-tech earth architecture of the Sahara: A feasibility study from the Western Desert of Egypt. Intelligent Building International, 2010.(Accepted in press).
3. Gado, T. and M. Osman, Investigating traditional natural ventilation methods used in El-Dakhla Oasis old village. Intelligent Building International, 2010.(Under editorial process).

Achieving thermal comfort inside buildings is a must especially in hot climates like in Egypt. Although, the harsh environment within the Egyptian deserts, where most of the government housing projects are being accommodated, the buildings' environmental design there has not been given enough attention. The problem of thermal discomfort in hot summer time was clearly found in these housing projects that built across the country. The theoretical analysis of the climatic context of the Egyptian deserts asserted the considerable cooling potentials of applying passive natural ventilation's strategies. This drove this work to focus on the enhancement of thermal comfort of walk-up housing blocks within the Egyptian deserts through the use of natural ventilation.

IS to investigate the possibility of enhancing the use of natural ventilation as a passive cooling strategy in government housing blocks within the Egyptian deserts. One of the most recent government housing prototypes was employed as a case study.

• Objectively and subjectively evaluating the natural ventilation performance in the case study
• Formulating the different design parameters that could possibly enhance the natural ventilation performance
• Quantifying the effect of different design parameters that could enhance the natural ventilation performance

Critical review, Buildings' monitoring, questionnaire, CFD computer simulation, and parametric analysis are being used to achieve the research main aim and objectives.

This ongoing work was presented in PhD seminars that regularly held in the school, in addition to three research paper were published with other three expected to be produced during the next year.

The application of this research results will maximize the benefits from the billions of pounds spent on uncomfortable government housing projects within the Egyptian deserts. Also, it introduces guidelines for designers on how to deal with natural ventilation through the design process.