Live-work and adaptable housing in Egypt: A zero commuting concept, lessons learnt from informal developments

Purpose Since the 1950s, Egypt has been challenged by rapid unplanned and uncontrolled informal developments. These may be regarded as people's interventions to fulfil their basic needs which are seemingly not successfully materialised in previous as well as current interventions. Building on the anticipated demographic and socio-economic changes in the Egyptian society and the consequent changing needs; the purpose of this paper is to present the preliminary investigation of an ongoing research project that regards the housing unit as the nucleus for autonomous mobility starting from the dwelling internal spaces to the nearest public transport. In this respect, informal interventions to adapt housing typologies to the various needs are explored, defined, and categorised to inform future developments. Design/methodology/approach This exploratory phase follows an interpretivist view, which regards reality as not being objective and exterior, but rather socially constructed - given meaning by people. Acknowledging this, a qualitative case study approach was adopted to investigate the perception and aspirations of different age groups and educational levels, including different mobility abilities regarding the efficiency of their housing units and the immediate surroundings - context bound to an informal area in Greater Cairo, Egypt. This investigation comprised two stages. The first was an observatory site visit to establish, define, and identify preliminary challenges; these were then verified and complemented through the second stage which involved meeting and validating stage one data with respective inhabitants. An invitation was sent to inhabitants through an active NGO in the area to gain trust and acceptance of the inhabitants. The invitation targeted different age groups, physical abilities, and educational levels. Findings While developed countries are reviving and promoting the live-work concept, and are continuously thriving to adapt their housing and built environment (in general) to be age friendly; in Egypt, however, Government has largely provided housing projects which adopt a total separation between residential and non-residential activities. Furthermore, the mixed-use typology provided by the Government was arguably with "limited success". Informal developments on the contrary tend to provide mixed-use housing typologies; in addition to informally adapting their "formal" dwellings to satisfy users' changing needs. People and particularly t