mart Urbanism must promote sustainability and Livability to rescue mother earth. 3D printing-based building technology is a new construction technique that began with the advent of the 3D printer in urban planning, especially in smart cities. Contour Crafting, one of the most current technologies, is a promising procedure that has the potential to revolutionize the building sector soon. This technology offers various advantages, including cost and time savings, less environmental damage, and fewer injuries and fatalities on construction sites. The application of BIM in the field of 3D printing is still limited as well related research, while BIM has reached an excellent achievement in the normal structure processes for many years. The new integration methodology this study promote is a creative strategic planning guidelines to identify the hierarchical work-flow steps for applying BIM (Building Information Modeling) with 3D printing building technology to enhance Smart Urban Planning and help achieve city livability as a new promising integration in city planning and construction field as well. This integration will improve energy efficiency, design, cost reduction, structure isolation, and, most importantly, increase city sustainability by aligning to Livability. The proposed new framework visioning is an essential part of smart Urbanism to achieve City Livability.

Quality of life, or Livability, is one of the most important objectives for any community worldwide. Over decades, people have recognized that some features can make places more or less livable. Whereas urbanism is the transformation of rural society into an urban one, the smart city is a paradigm that aims at employing technology to improve, in essence, Livability through sustainable integration of technology, the natural environment, and people’s needs. In line with the Saudi Vision 2030 objectives, which aim to take its cities to a level of sustainable urbanization that improves the Quality of Life, the Saudi Green initiative was announced early in 2021 to be the solid foundation for livable cities. This paper examines these developments and, against this backdrop, introduces a new feature to the smart cities paradigm, i.e., Livability.

Rapid urbanization, high traffic density, and lack of open spaces are noticeable challenges that impose several repercussions on children within the urban context and restrict them from living a normal childhood. Independent mobility is reduced according to the spatial deprivation of children from pedestrian experiences in urban environments. Consequently, children’s opportunities for active engagement and participation in social life will be diminished. Residing in safe environments is a fundamental right that should be granted to all children around the world. Recently, child-friendly urban design has gained a lot of attention due to its remarkable advantages as it brings children’s needs and desires into practice. Creating safe, child-friendly open spaces contributes to protecting children from traffic injuries and crimes while at the same time stimulating their imagination and nurturing communication skills. This paper addresses the topic of safe, child-friendly open spaces in residential neighborhoods, which can significantly improve the life, health, and growth of children with a focus on social and traffic aspects within the urban context. Identifying the design principles of safe, child-friendly open spaces is the main aim that will be tackled. To achieve this goal, the research will follow a theoretical approach by applying a qualitative research methodology through historical interpretation and understanding of the main characteristics and design principles of child-friendly open spaces. This would be followed by an evaluative analysis of a related case-study. The expected results of this research are planned to introduce an adapted design model for safe child-friendly open spaces in residential neighborhoods for the local context of Saudi cities with more focus on both social and traffic safety aspects.

The neighborhood has become the focus of attraction of urban planners, designers and architects. Over the last two decades, the field of study of the neighborhood and its relationship with health has witnessed an explosion of interest. Several researchers investigated neighborhood problems and its impacts on well-being. Different urban problems vary in mental and physical health impacts. A lot of longitudinal and cross-sectional research linked the characteristic of neighborhood whether physical or social to the health condition of the community. Furthermore, heart disease, skin disorder, cancer diabetes, depression and drug use are some of the health problems that an individual might face while living in an insufficient neighborhood particularly in harsh climate conditions. In desert climate, thermal low performance can lead to urban problems such as the well-known phenomenon “Urban Heat Island (UHI)”. The later can lead to several illness syndromes for residents. Reviewing the literature revealed a gap in the knowledge on the detailed relationship between the urban design elements and the sick health syndrome. This paper discusses the negative impact of the neighborhood design elements and its interconnection with illness syndromes. Similar to the Sick Building Syndrome (SBS), the paper introduces a new term to define the relationship between the urban design elements and the sick health syndromes which is “Sick Neighborhood Syndrome” (SNS).

This study is to debate urban forms embraces urban heat island adaptation and mitigation actions. It also aims to investigate the effect of urban design impacts, to develop strategies for reducing urban heat island influences with a good preparation for climate change adaptation, and to contribute in improving quality of urban life. In order to achieve the objectives of this study, the scientific methodology was used due to its suitability to the nature of the research, which depends mainly on three stages; record facts from the field build a preliminary theory from the literature review, and experimental situations. Several approaches have been used: data collection, literature review, preparation through data bases, probability analysis using SPSS program, and Space Syntax analysis. The study investigates two districts in Jeddah which are Al-Balad and Al-Basateen. The results show differences in temperature between the two districts at the same time schedule. The factors impacting this urban heat island’s result were attributed to different urban fabric between the two districts. The study recommends decreasing urban heat island by using robust structures, increasing the use of plants in design, and implementing an effective urban design. Design Strategy Properties of urban materials, particularly, solar, reflectance, thermal emissivity and heat capacity, also influence the development of urban heat island as they determine how the suns energy is reflected, emitted, and absorbed. The contribution of this study is the formulation of asset of strategies and principles that can help directing designers to transform these defunct downtowns into sustainable urban cores for people to live, work, play and visit.

The smart city concept has emerged in Egypt in the last 5 years with the start of the fourth generation of new cities, creating a gap between the policies dealing with new versus existing cities. In fact, the proposed strategic master plans for existing cities lacked the components of smartness and the true engagement of stakeholders. It rather focused on meeting the challenges resulting from the over densification, and informalities by a participatory approach that is still missing an appropriate common language between all stakeholders. The authors argue that smart cities’ vision will contribute to solving the issues of cities if linked to the regional context, especially involving new cities while achieving local resilience. The case of New Alamein and old Alamein is a clear interpretation that will be discussed and analyzed to determine the way forward to achieve the integrative vision. This chapter addresses the importance of an integrated approach that would ensure the successful implementation of the smart cities’ initiative in both new and existing cities through empowering the utilization of physical, human, and economic resources of the country. Particularly, the chapter provides insights into how to engage the various stakeholders to contribute to the Egyptian agenda 2030 to place the existing Egyptian agglomerations on the map of sustainable smart cities. The authors will provide recommendations on how to achieve a dynamic inclusion of all stakeholders, emphasizing their role to build sustainable, resilient, and smart cities. This would imply to determine the difference of scale, and level of smartness required to achieve a smart integration.