Young Active Researcher Award, Faculty of Engineering, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt

Faculty Award of Merit for Best Doctoral Presentation, School of Architecture, Georgia Institute of Technology

This project aims at providing automated feedback for spatial validation, circulation assessment, and energy and cost implications using preliminary concept design BIM models for U.S. courthouse buildings using Solibri Model Checker (SMC). This project was conducted at the AEC Integration Laboratory at the School of Architecture, Georgia Tech, Atlanta, USA.

This project uses heuristic methods including fuzzy logic to automatically evaluate spatial relations in different existing layout configurations. This heuristic approach involves a thorough analysis of spatial parameters and relations, including configurations, objects within spaces, and object-object, space-object and space-space relations in order to assess specific spatial qualities, especially soft qualities such as comfort, privacy, accessibility, etc. for a given layout scheme.

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is increasingly impacted by the negative effects of both anthropogenic climate change and air pollution emissions. This arid region has been recently identified as a hot spot for climate change, with alarming projections of strong precipitation decrease and temperature increase leading to broader challenges of water scarcity and food security. Anthropogenic global warming of this region has been receiving specific attention, with little done to measure and monitor its ramifications, let alone any measures for change. One of the significant measures of change include green building approaches. Green buildings attempt to reduce negative impacts and preserve natural resources through strategies of pollution and waste reduction, good indoor environmental quality, and the efficient use of energy, water and other resources. This project aims to develop a preliminary, time-dependent energy, electricity, and fuel consumption database for Egypt’s current building stock, modelled after the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Energy Information Administration (EIA) databases. It also aims at estimating the change in (a) greenhouse gas and (b) air pollution emissions with a ‘greening’ of Egypt’s current building stock.

This research aims at introducing an optimized design-to-robotic production approach that integrates multipoint forming and adjustable moulds together with robotic free form material deposition to produce mass customizable double curved façade panels. The objective is to generate customizable panels with complex geometry, and optimize fabrication workflow, with minimum waste and maximum accuracy in representing irregular forms.

The goal of this research project is to provide potential solutions of the impact of different brick configurations, bond types and projections and determine their thermal performance. The objective is to utilize parametric and thermal analysis tools to develop wall configurations that are sensitive in their look and form to solar radiation; and thus a performance driven design for the determination of wall design thickness and thermal mass to impact the overall building energy use intensity.

This research is conducted collaboratively between Princeton University and the American University in Cairo. The purpose of this research is to explore innovative, low-cost and material-efficient adaptive building facades for the design of a carbon-zero built environment. Current solutions to actively moderate the influence of weather conditions on buildings’ interior environment rely on rigid body motions and complex actuation devices, thus limiting their broader adoption in low-carbon buildings. This project explores these challenges and solutions, focusing on the interaction between geometry, elasticity and environmental performance to develop skins that reduce energy consumption.