A funded German-Egyptian progress partnership; short-term measures by DAAD titled “Understanding the German-Egyptian Cities by Machine Intelligence” by Hafen City University Hamburg, City Science Lab in cooperation with Mansoura University, Tanta University, Kafr-ElSheikh University, University College London (UCL) from June – December 2019
By: Moukhtar Akl
Teaching Assistant at Mansoura University
Guest Researcher in City Science lab, Hafen City University, Hamburg, Germany _ Short Semester Stay – 3 months
Introduction:
Within the current rapid urbanization, higher accessibility, and job opportunities within cities, Despite the dynamics of population migration, and quality of life, cities witness higher demand for housing and services to cope with the rapid changes. While some governments in the global north have succeeded to model, forecast, and predict the dynamics of the various urban systems, many challenges face cities in the global south such as a higher level of uncertainty and chaos within the dynamics of cities.
The goal of the exchange is the initiation of research cooperation in the field of digital city analysis and design by way of participatory workshops and interactive tool presentations. Further, it aims to promote research of the City Science Lab (CSL) by application of the City Scope tools at partner universities.
Partnership Activities:
City Science Summit – Cities Without
Egyptian Delegation Study Visit
CS lunch presentation
Case Study Development
City Science Lab Visit to Cairo and Mansoura University
1st German Architecture and Cities Day
1st Delta Symposium
TUM Workshop
Virtual City Systems Meeting
Christmas party presentations
Amsterdam field research and TU Delft visit
Ministers and GIZ delegation in CSL
Urban City Lab:
Urban- City Lab is an initiative by Egyptian Sustainable Urbanism – ESU lab to perform an interdisciplinary research by linking technical issues in the context of digitization with urban planning development in Egypt. As the dynamics of population growth and the demand quality of life, cities witness higher demand for housing and services to cope with the rapid changes. The focus of our Lab is to develop a rapid and interactive systems that can model the changes in cities and improve their systems.
Case Study:
As El Mansoura is considered the 3rd biggest city in Egypt, the capital of Dakahlia governorate and considered as intermediate city.
El Mansoura is surrounded by agriculture lands with no ability for horizontal expansion. Informal urban extensions on agriculture lands and urbanization of surrounding villages are the main urban problems without any development plans or regulations to control the urban sprawl destroying agriculture farms.
The Selected area include 3 different urban contexts with 3 different urban strategies to deal with. The 3 urban context are Old City Center, Mansoura University Campus and Informal Urbanized Villages.
Activities:
A visit to the city science lab in Hafen city University (HCU)
‘’Understanding cities without machines’’ workshop
City Science Lab Visit to Cairo and Mansoura University
1st Delta Symposium Workshops
Enhancing the learning and teaching methods
For more details, you can see the end report.