Abstract
Upper Egypt region is characterised with harsh hot arid climate conditions
which means that even mechanical cooling cannot be applied on a wide scale of urban
housing projects. Therefore, urban passive desig n principles should be considered in
present climate conditions to conclude an acceptable indoor human thermal comfort
conditions and crucially for future conditions. As part of NUBA urban villages'
development project, NUBA, sponsored by the Egyptian Gov ernment, this paper
investigates the mean outdoor thermal comfort of two urban housing alternatives. The
case study is a new development to the west of Aswan International Airport and
consists of eight urban villages each of which is composed of a group of clusters
accommodating about 2000 people. First alternative has been almost approved for
construction on a rush of time for as a fast replacement for Nuba people old houses due
to the new urban planning of Aswan; it has been designed without full consider ation for
passive techniques nor for the Egyptian Energy Code in Residential Buildings. That is
why the second alternative tries to support redesign of the rest villages. Numerical
simulations took place to generate outdoor meteorology for present day and the year
2050. Results of whole village outdoor spaces showed that second alternative is far
better than the first both in present day and in future, proofed that there is no choice but
to design passively in such hot arid region and proofed the passive d esign methodology
used.