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Autistic Spectrum Disorder is a developmental disorder estimated to inflict 1 in every 150 children, regardless of socio-cultural aspects, with a four to one prevalence in males over females, (ADDM, 2007). It involves a complex sensory perceptual model, variant from that of the typical individual. It manifests itself in the form of repetitive behaviour, lack of social skills and communication delays and challenges. Being a life-long infliction, individuals with autism require a comprehensive range of specialized support services, including residential, from childhood to adulthood.

Housing services for special needs, in general, conventionally deal with issues of physical access. The provisions required for developmentally challenged individuals, such as those with autism are rarely considered.

This paper aims to provide a precedent to help guide the adaptation process in the case of group residential accommodation for autistic adults in mass housing projects. After a brief examination of the available literature in the field, a case study will be presented, illustrating design criteria developed for adapting housing for autistic use.

The New Urban Agenda has catalyzed discussion across academia and practice on how to responsibly position ourselves as key players in the making of the future of our cities. With questions such as what is the right to the city? Who has those rights? What is a city? What is formal and who defines informal? These questions may prompt a need for departure from, or at least a reconsideration of the narrative surrounding formal and informal urbanism. This paper presents a pedagogical approach to addressing these and other questions within the framework of the new agenda. It reviews pedagogical approaches to understanding and learning to design within an informal context. It also foregrounds the process with the theoretical framing of Christopher Alexander's Pattern Language and Timeless way of Building as lenses through which to understand and identify common languages and intersections across the global spectrum of representations of informal urbanism. It then outlines the resultant process and products of a one-week intensive master-class and design charette of international scholars and students focusing on the Informal City.

It reviews pedagogical approaches to understanding and learning to design within an informal context. It also foregrounds the process with the theoretical framing of Christopher Alexander's Pattern Language and Timeless way of Building as lenses through which to understand and identify common languages and intersections across the global spectrum of representations of informal urbanism. It then outlines the resultant process and products of a one-week intensive master-class and design charette of international scholars and students focusing on the Informal City.

The paper conclusively presents new nomenclature for informality that strives to shift the semantic lens from its current negative connotations to more productive, proactive and positive ones. It also presents an Informal City Manifesto, a call to arms of theoretical framing of how we think about the formal informal divide.

The paper, in part, outlines the results of a single studio with a small student number. Although diverse in its composition the student body is small.

This new framing could potentially allow us to best leverage lessons and mitigate challenges of the informal city condition, as our human settlements continue to urbanize.

The objective of this paper is to study the efficacy of the ASPECTSS Design Index's concepts as drivers of design intervention for educational environments for students on the autism spectrum. Based on the seven principles of acoustics, spatial sequencing, escape spaces, compartmentalization, transitions, sensory zoning and safety, ASPECTSS formed the basis for a preliminary post-occupancy evaluation (POE) and survey of an existing school environment.

Concepts drawn from the review of other strategies for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) friendly design were integrated with the seven ASPECTSS principles to create a design framework and consequent design retro-fit for a Pre-K-12th grade public school for students on the autism spectrum. The following design interventions were proposed: colour-coding based navigation; acoustical treatments in key circulation spaces; introduction of transition alcoves; classroom reorganisation using compartmentalization principles and the introduction of escape spaces for de-escalation. Specifically, a classroom template of modules of ASPECTSS-compliant layouts was provided to all staff. The efficacy and impact of these interventions were assessed using a whole campus online staff survey with further probing using classroom observations and subsequent interviews.

The results show alignment between the implementation of the ASPECTSS informed design interventions and responses to nine of the Likert scale items were all significantly lower than the middle response, indicating a high degree of satisfaction from survey respondents. These questions and responses related to the colour scheme facilitating ease of navigation for visitors of the school, the acoustics of the building successfully mitigating sound magnification and subsequently student distractibility, the organisation of the classrooms enhancing learning and the de-escalation zones allowing improved management of disruptive behaviours in the classroom.

This study focuses primarily on the Autism ASPECTSS Design Index as a framework for assessing classroom efficacy. Other tools and frameworks may produce different insights. A single school site was studied. Validation of these findings in other school environments is necessary before generalising these strategies at scale. The use of qualitative tools, primarily teacher and staff surveys, provides one lens into the efficacy of these design strategies. Further research using measurable biometric indicators such as heart-rate and stress levels measured through wearable technology could provide a first step towards the triangulation of these findings.

These findings could help provide more standardised best practices for designing learning environments for autism, potentially providing supportive strategies with real impact on learning quality, skill development and knowledge acquisition in school environments. This could potentially have economic implications by supporting more efficient progress for autistic students through their school curriculum.

Similar to economic impact, if validated and generalised, these findings could help with sense of accomplishment, general mental health improvement, alleviation of family stress and potential reduction of stigma in the autism community.

There is a slowly emerging field of design guidance for autism schools, but very little empirical evidence on the measurable efficacy of these strategies. This research provides one type of such evidence, as measured by the perceived impact from the point of view of staff and teachers at the school.

Architecture, at its very essence, is the process of providing physical space and place for human activity. Primarily concerned with responding to the specific needs of users and their societies, the built environment plays a tremendous role in shaping and facilitating the every day world we live in. Although being inextricably concerned with this man-environment dynamic, architecture however seems to limit its mainstream practices, education and standards to the conventional spectrum of “normal”. This leaves numerous user groups and victims of social circumstances largely excluded from the luxury of an architecture that deems itself specifically to serve them.

This article aims to provide an insightful analysis of the UIA World Congress of Architects held in Copenhagen in 2023. The Congress adopted the aspirational motto “Leave no one behind,” prompting debates on how to realize this vision. Six major congress tracks centered on architecture's function in the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Each track focused on a particular design challenge: climate adaptation, circular design strategies, community resilience, public health, inclusive built environments and challenging power structures. There were 250 scholarly papers and pre-and-post-events for further debate on the tracks.

This paper provides an insightful overview of the major panels, analyzes the events' content and analyzes the efficiency of the final ten principles underlining the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration, community participation and new design approaches in achieving the SDGs.

Organizing an inclusive global event is a multifaceted challenge, demanding a careful representation of diverse participants. The selection of an appropriate venue, effective exhibition curation and thoughtful scientific representation play pivotal roles. The exhibition successfully engaged a broad spectrum of attendees. While the structure of six distinct tracks focusing on climate adaptation, resource reevaluation, resilient communities, public health, inclusivity and partnership for change was commendable, an excess of parallel sessions impeded the potential for robust discussions. A more cohesive approach with integrated sessions and flexible timeframes could foster meaningful exchanges, aligning with the essence of the motto “Leave no one behind.” It is suggested to prioritize in-depth engagement over breadth, enabling profound dialogues among stakeholders in shaping the agenda for future congresses.

This paper offers originality through its analysis of the UIA 2023 Congress's major events spotlighting architecture's significance within the UN SDGs. Enriched by the author's active engagement and reflective insights from the event, this paper adds value to the academic dialogue surrounding architecture and sustainable development. Additionally, the insights garnered from this analysis can inform the planning of future congresses and the refinement of guiding principles.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce the problem of the lack of auditor independence in the Egyptian context, how it might affect the audit quality, through assessing reasons behind the voluntary switching of auditors, whether this switch is in the side of improving audit quality or not and the suggestion of the mandatory auditor rotation as a solution to such a problem.

The paper's findings are based on a survey analysis. The survey is done through a questionnaire created by the researcher (author) from the literature and distributed among audit practitioners from the Big Four audit firms operating in Egypt.

The problem of lack of auditor independence exists in Egypt due to many reasons. The main reason is the poor structure of corporations of being closely held. It was also found that the voluntary switching of auditors are for purposes improving the quality; from these reasons is the search of more reputable auditors and timelier audit opinions. Finally auditor rotation was suggested by the practitioners in order to overcome the problems of lack of independence and that the mandatory firm rotation is suggested instead of the mandatory partner rotation.

The mandatory audit firm rotation in different countries had some positive effect on audit quality. The application of mandatory rotation in the Egyptian context where there the problem of the lack of auditor independence is really clear is suggested so as to overcome the consequences of the independence problem and improve the audit quality.

This research work tries to dig more into the Egyptian context as a developing country regarding the threats to the auditing professionals in terms of the causes that might be impairing their independence as well as assessing the applicability of the mandatory rotation practice in Egypt.