Mamun Rashid

• PhD, UNSW Sydney, Australia
• Professor (Associate) at University of Sharjah

Despite the Arabian Gulf's challenging environment, the predominant scenographic trend in Gulf architecture overlooks the significance of intergenerational (past to present) tectonic legacy in contemporary practices. The paper seeks to redress this oversight by exploring the nuanced intersections between architectural tectonics, built heritage and...

Purpose This paper aims to identify the pre-design critical success factors CSFs pertaining to different types of construction projects in the rapidly growing city of Dubai, by adopting one of the multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) tools, analytic hierarchy process (AHP). Design/methodology/approach A mapping process was utilized to filter and...

This research seeks to gain a deeper understanding of the current ecosystem of BIM technology and its utilization in the UAE. Since the UAE has been an early adopter of BIM, its utilization of BIM is now likely to reach that of developed nations. By adopting the BIM case study analysis framework, two sets of projects of similar categories in terms...

Museums are increasingly embracing information and communication technology (ICT) to promote cultural tourism and to keep pace with changes in society. Cultural values, legacies, and customs are transmitted through museums, connecting current generations with their past. ICTs are used in almost all museum operations, both within and outside their w...

This article chronicles the evolution of the UAE’s (United Arab Emirates) residential architecture from its pre-urban beginnings in the dwellings of semi-nomadic tribes and coastal merchants to the ‘iconic' villas of the present. A temporal framing of traditional planning practices, including the collaborative roles of Sheikhs and transnational act...

UAE urban housing and planning history discourses commonly assume a sharp division between the pre-oil (before the 1950s) and the post-oil (since the 1960s) eras. It is a misleading assumption that flattens historical legacies and exempts pre-oil tribal and maritime built landscape from having a bearing on the emergence of more recent ‘iconic’ vill...

This paper explores the methodology for the production and integration of Heritage Building Information Modeling (HBIM) into the museum management system of the Emirate of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates (UAE). The historic Bait Al Naboodah Museum is documented as a pilot study using terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) technology. The scanning and model...

To conclude, this paper anticipates three plausible scenarios for early-stage conceptual design in CAAD. This will have a broader impact beyond the traditional field of architectural engineering practice and architectural design education

Materials, building technology and innovative details in design played an important role in the traditional architecture of the Gulf. Yet due to unprecedented urbanization, vernacular know-how is now being lost or eroded. Besides once ecologically sustainable and energy thrift architectural strategies are now thought to be inappropriate, unsuitable...

Using an inner urban area of Sydney city as a case study, the paper puts forward that overall residential satisfaction is related to three sets of factors: objective characteristics of environment, objective characteristics of residents and their subjective perception. Three hypothesized models by regression are tested to empirically examine which...

Both architecture and anthropology emerged as autonomous theoretical disciplines in the 18th-century enlightenment. Throughout the 19th century, the fields shared a common icon—the primitive hut—and a common concern with both routine needs and ceremonial behaviours. Both could lay strong claims to a special knowledge of the everyday. And yet, in th...

Descriptive and somewhat elusive, sketchy historical notes exist for possible cultural links between ethnic people of the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) of Bangladesh, South Asia, and ethnic people across the national borders in Southeast Asia. Yet, there is a curious lack of research that uses vernacular architecture or ethnic architectural building...

Ethnographic surveys of building processes rarely feature in mainstream architectural history. The curious dearth of studies derives perhaps more from the absence of a relevant methodological orientation and cross-disciplinary collaboration than a lack of serious interest in the building process itself. By drawing on building methods and know-how f...

Historically, geographers, anthropologists and colonial British administrators (1860–1947) frequently mentioned two ethno-geographical categories – khoungtha and toungtha – when referring to the tribal groups in the Chittagong Hills of Bangladesh. Some of these early works considered the livelihood patterns of these groups and the nature of their s...

The socio-cultural significance of the dwelling has been illuminated in several anthropological studies of ethnic communities in Asia. To some extent, this interest is also shared with architects examining vernacular dwellings. Yet few studies approach these examples primarily as ecologically placed architectural entities, with a temporal-ritual am...

Though a popular form in many developing cities in Asia, a lack of research on particular walk-up typology makes it difficult to conclude on its dispersion and evolving features. Drawing on case studies, this paper analyses different aspects of contemporary and old walk-up house forms in Dhaka. In particular, it focuses on the evolution and transfo...

The concept of designed green outdoor spaces that can be included in inner-city Sydney residential areas has recently generated much interest among savvy developers and architects alike. Given the paucity of open park-like spaces in inner Sydney and the current drive for urban consolidation—though the concept has been endorsed—yet, the detailed imp...

Vernacular buildings across the globe provide instructive examples of sustainable solutions to building problems. Yet, these solutions are assumed to be inapplicable to modern buildings. Despite some views to the contrary, there continues to be a tendency to consider innovative building technology as the hallmark of modern architecture because trad...

Given the drive for densification in New South Wales planning policies in the last few decades, the issue of natural features and green spaces is now of great concern among urban residents and researchers. Having outdoor spaces is challenging in a dense urban setting of inner areas, where spaces are at a premium. Moreover, within context of scarcit...

Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bangladesh: Humanities 48 (2003): 171.

It is now generally accepted that a relationship exists between the shape, size, density and uses of a city and its sustainability. Yet regarding to urban house form, a lack of in-depth analysis, or perhaps serious interest, in the way these buildings interact with the user-their purported aim -seems puzzling given the widespread focus on 'social d...