Author(s)

OLA ALI BAYOUMI, MOHAMED ABDELALL, MOHAMED ANWAR FIKRY

Abstract

This paper is aiming to revive the real meaning of an “Eco-lodge” in the Egyptian western desert. Siwa was a totally isolated oasis centered at the North of Sahara desert and connected to the Egyptian Western desert, and thus it has a unique environmental features developed for thousands of years ago. Unfortunately, the new roads established by the Egyptian government to connect between Siwa oasis, Matrouh and Giza cities lead to the transformation of lots of new ideologies and innovative building materials. Beside the previous obstacles, foreign architects ignore most of the building strategies and restrictions created by local residence during establishing new “Siwan-tourism settlements.” According to Dr. Emad’s words, the designer of Babenshal eco-lodge, Siwan builders exchange their experience to future generations in order to respect Nature; the reason is they are totally aware that Nature’s punishment is totally destructive and this is the truth that most architects forget about. For that the researcher will try to continue their research on giving a sample weighting for any future eco-lodges that are or will be built in Siwa oasis. According to their previous paper under the name “Developing an Ecological Assessment Tool for Siwan eco-lodges in the Egyptian Western Desert (EWD)” the researcher had created a criterion specified for local Siwan eco-lodges giving weighting coefficient values for Environmental and Social items, indicators and their parameters. By field work study and the usage of air quality multi-meter device they can find the mean value of the highest three indicators of IEQ which are CO₂ in ppm, temperature in degree Celsius and air flow in m/s, multiplying them with their weighting coefficient = 0.14. This method will be applied on one of the most famous eco-lodges “Babenshal Eco-lodge” as a case study to scientifically rate its environmental indoor quality.

Keywords

air quality measurements, ethnographic approach, Babenshal eco-lodge, Siwa oasis