Levels of empowerment in contemporary architectural trends and practices

The current era is witnessing the increasing social, economic, and environmental challenges that architecture is exposed to, in addition to the increase in crises and disasters in terms of the increase of population and wars, in addition to difficult living conditions and unemployment, in contrast to an abundance of technological and scientific progress and development, which was thus reflected on the multiple areas of life, including architecture, to highlight architecture empowerment as one of the means to advance human reality in a way that achieves equality and justice and supports creativity and innovation within sustainable development. The previous studies and propositions highlighted multiple aspects of the empowerment architecture according to the visions and perceptions that vary in their focus on one aspect rather than the other in some cases, so the research came to present a cognitive problem related to provide comprehensive and clear knowledge of the levels of the empowerment architecture by adopting the descriptive approach in analyzing previous knowledge, which enables building a knowledge framework for the empowerment architecture at the level of both the design process and the product. These levels are subsequently investigated in three selected models of design trends and three contemporary applied experiences. The research concluded the importance of the empowerment architecture being comprehensive, integrated, and continuous through the involvement of users in the design process, to find a product that enables users to initiate, interact and participate within the various levels of life within the framework of sustainable human development. Focuses on advancing the social, economic, cultural and technical reality of individuals and groups. It has been found that the design trends and contemporary applied experiences focus on the level of product in empowering users compared to their focus on empowerment within the design process, which requires review and reconsideration in the future.