Design out waste framework for achieving sustainability in public housing projects in Egypt

Abstract

Due to the increasing population worldwide, Public housing projects (PHPs) have witnessed a rapid increase during the previous decades. Simultaneously, this generated a substantial amount of waste that represents roughly 40% of the solid waste produced by the construction industry every year. Being one of the significant phases of the construction process, the choices made during the design process play a crucial role towards increasing the solid waste created during the construction phase, which eventually affected the sustainability of the developed projects. This called for considering innovative strategies that reduce construction waste during the design process. This paper aims to develop a framework to facilitate the implementation of Design out waste (DOW) strategy to achieve sustainability in PHPs in Egypt. A research methodology based on literature review, case studies and survey questionnaire was developed to achieve the above mentioned aim. The developed framework represent a synthesis that is novel and creative in thought as it is the first study to discuss the implementation of DOW strategy towards achieving sustainability in PHPs in Egypt.