Medinas: From Vernacular to Smart Sustainable Cities and Buildings

Abstract

Cities are the most prominent agile and resilient complex systems that evolved over time and space. Many of them survived for centuries, some for more than two millennia, like the Medinas of the MENA region, and they are still thriving. They survived many natural and human-made hazards and crises not to mention fundamental cultural and economic changes. Urbanists and sociologists believe that the key to a sustainable agile city is the existence and living of a community with its inhabitants and users. When the community vanishes, and the communal societal spirit disappears, it is only a matter of time before a city begins to decline and potentially fully disappears or mutates. A gradual disintegration of various infrastructure systems and services leads to crime rise, poverty, deficient educational and health systems, and a growing social divisions and inequalities.