Search Results (11)

Housing informality in Morocco has taken root within Rabat’s formal neighborhoods, quietly reshaping façades, extending plot lines, and redrawing the texture of entire blocks. This ongoing transformation runs up against the rigidity of official planning frameworks, producing tension between state enforcement and tacit tolerance, as residents navigate persistent legal and economic ambiguities. Prior Moroccan studies are neighborhood-specific or socio-economic; the field lacks a city-wide, multi-class analysis linking everyday tactics to long-term governance dilemmas and policy design. The paper, therefore, asks how and why residents and architects across affordable, middle-class, and affluent districts craft unapproved modifications, and what urban order emerges from their cumulative effects. A mixed qualitative design triangulates (i) five resident focus groups and two architect focus groups, (ii) 50 short, structured interviews, and (iii) 500 geo-referenced façade photographs and observational field notes, thematically coded and compared across housing types. In addition to deciphering informality methods and impacts, the results reveal that informal modifications are shaped by both reactive needs—such as accommodating family growth and enhancing security—and proactive drivers, including esthetic expression and real estate value. Despite their legal ambiguity, these modifications are socially normalized and often viewed by residents as value-adding improvements rather than infractions. Full article

This paper systematically reviews scientific papers to understand the primary forms of HI, why they arise, and how they affect the urban landscape. It addresses the question, “What are the key trends, drivers, and impacts of Housing Informality (HI), and what methods researchers use to study the latter?”. Previous research addressed the trends, drivers, impacts, and methods individually, failing to adopt a holistic perspective that could clarify HI as a core scientific concept distinct from informal housing. Accordingly, this systematic literature review (SLR) explores 541 scientific peer-reviewed publications from Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar. By utilizing a PRISMA framework, we reduced the number of documents to 27, which we thoroughly analyzed. The results highlight five main trends of HI around the globe: unauthorized modifications, informal market dynamics, Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs), squatting, and unusual housing. These trends are induced by several economic and sociocultural drivers that address the gap between regulations and governance from one side and lived realities from another, resulting in economic, social, legal, health, and urban impacts. Full article

Housing informality (HI), and particularly unauthorized modifications, are a widely spread phenomenon in Morocco’s rapidly growing coastal suburb of Harhoura, Rabat. While previous research has already focused on the socio-economic aspects of informal adaptations in affordable and middle-class housing contexts in Morocco, it leaves a gap regarding how HI is expressed in affluent settings independently and in relation to the other contexts. This research aims to visually capture how residents adapt their housing through unauthorized modifications. The research objectives are to analyze informalities that are unique to affordable, middle-class, and affluent housing and to examine if there are any shared HI patterns that transcend socio-economic contexts. This paper utilizes a mixed-methods approach by superposing fieldwork data, including the recollection of existing buildings and authorized archival data, with the help of a referential grid based on three case studies in Harhoura, Rabat, affordable, middle-class, and affluent settings, which enables effective individual and communal spatial-morphological analyses. The findings reveal distinctive and shared patterns from one side and propagation dynamics from the other, including important concepts, such as mirroring (the replication of similar informalities) and contrast (the implementation of informalities in contrast with the existing ones), between the different socio-economic contexts, which suggest higher transcending shared needs between them. By showcasing that people of diverse socio-economic means adapt their homes in strikingly similar ways, this study discredits the assumption that poverty is the primary driver of renovation approaches. This broadened lens enriches our understanding of how urban housing evolves and points to the urgency of inclusive strategies addressing key housing priorities for all. Full article

Polystyrene is renowned for its excellent thermal insulation due to its closed-cell structure that traps air and reduces heat conduction. This study aims to develop sustainable, energy-efficient building materials by enhancing the thermal and mechanical properties of plaster–polystyrene bio-composites. By incorporating varying amounts of polystyrene (5% to 25%) into plaster, our research investigates changes in thermal conductivity, thermal resistance, and mechanical properties such as Young’s modulus and maximum stress. Meticulous preparation of composite samples ensures consistency, with thermal and mechanical properties assessed using a thermal chamber and four-point bending and tensile tests. The results show that increasing the polystyrene content significantly improved thermal insulation and stiffness, though maximum stress decreased, indicating a trade-off between insulation and mechanical strength. Full article

In this paper, an optimization-based analysis approach is presented to cost-effectively improve the energy efficiency of residential buildings in Morocco. This study introduces a unique focus on the Moroccan context, where a comprehensive application of energy efficiency optimization has not yet been undertaken. This analysis considers the interactive effects among various energy efficiency measures to determine optimal combinations for designing high-energy performance, as well as net-zero energy, residential buildings for six climate zones in Morocco. In particular, the design analysis approach combines a whole-building simulation with the sequential search technique, providing a novel, integrated cost–benefit analysis that minimizes lifecycle costs (LCC) while maximizing energy savings for each climate zone. This study also includes an unprecedented comparison of optimized designs, reference designs, and current Moroccan building regulations (RTCM), highlighting potential improvements to the existing regulatory framework. While the sequential search method has been applied elsewhere, its specific application to achieve net-zero energy homes in the Moroccan context with comparable LCC is a new contribution. The analysis results show that houses in Morocco can be cost-effectively designed to achieve annual energy savings of 51% for Zone 1, 53% for Zone 2, 60% for Zone 3, 67% for Zone 4, 54% for Zone 5, and 56% for Zone 6 compared to the current construction practices considered as reference designs. Moreover, the results indicate that houses can reach net-zero energy building designs with almost the same LCC as the reference design cases for all the climate zones in Morocco. Full article

This study aimed to investigate the changes in the landscapes and land cover in the villages of the Ziz Valley from 1965 to 2023. Equally, we evaluated the potential of sustainable tourism in these rural regions with a SWOT analysis. The obtained results showed that the landscapes were deeply changed, with a dominance of farmlands and the appearance of the Ziz reservoir. Rural villages near Errachidia were replaced after the flood of 1965. Errachidia’s urbanization increased by 400% and overflowed into certain villages, while the availability of water encouraged the rise of farms. The villages near the city became urbanized, resulting in the development of business zones and tourism destinations that offered the locals bright futures. In contrast to cluster A, the SWOT analysis reveals that strengths exceed vulnerabilities in cluster B and C villages. Despite the alteration of ancient and natural landscapes, the potential for rural tourism appears to be stronger in the villages included in clusters B and C. Full article

The continuous growth of urban populations and the complexities of their current management in Africa have driven local governments to explore new technologies to optimize their urban and territorial performance. These governments and related stakeholders’ resort to the term “smart city” to orient the current urban planning policies and practices to be more efficient and adequate. Nevertheless, the issue that remains is how to contextualize this global term that has not yet been fully adopted by African cities that have claimed to be “Smart”. This contextualization becomes more complex in this critical context, where the city has not yet reached an ideal performance. Therefore, to reach this prospective African smart city, a critical review of how it would be both human-centered and techno-centered is imperative. This paper would review accordingly the above argument and set key performance indicator-based methodology on how to evaluate the smartness of a city in the African context. Full article

In recent decades, the Saïss plain, in the northwest of Morocco, has experienced a noticeable increase in water demand due to a very significant population growth and economic development, as well as the climate change effects. With the aim of reaching optimal and dynamic management of these water resources, it is essential to have comprehensive and reliable information on the state of the aquifer systems in the region. To achieve this, we assessed a geostatistical analysis of groundwater level data, and created a multivariate regression model. Indeed, in this study, a spatiotemporal analysis of groundwater depth based on piezometric measurements of 45 wells was carried out for the period from 2005 to 2020. It compares and evaluates eight geostatistical interpolation methods and solves the problem of data gaps of the piezometric measurement by completing the chronological series of the groundwater level between 2005 and 2020 using the ARIMA model. The results demonstrate that the variation in the groundwater level between 2005 and 2020 indicates that the water table level is decreased in certain areas, but it has improved or remained constant in other areas. These results emphasize an urgent need for a dynamic management for the conservation of groundwater resources in certain areas of the region under this study. Full article

With the rapid urbanization occurring across African cities, the emergence of a middle class is exerting its influence on the urban form and structure. Matching their social status and drawing on global influences, the housing characteristics of this class are distinctive in spatial organization, material choice, and location, among others. Understanding these emerging typologies is critical for urban housing policy to be responsive to the needs and preferences of this class. The present paper aims first to develop a new approach for defining the middle class in the African context and second, to analyze its housing typology through a multidimensional analysis based on housing attributes and socio-economic characteristics in Casablanca City. A data-driven approach based on principal component analysis (PCA) has been used to define multidimensionally the middle class and its housing typology. Through the construction of a multidimensional composite index to measure middle class, the study highlighted that middle-class housing is characterized by an adequate condition, a suitable size (two to three rooms), and affordability between 8000 and 11,000 Moroccan dirhams (MAD) per square meter. In addition, although the Moroccan modern houses (two-floor single-family housing) and apartments (four floors or greater) are the most occupied by the middle class, the study showed that as income and social mobility increase, the apartment building and the villa are increasingly preferred to the Moroccan modern house. Full article

The use of timber in the building industry has expanded in many countries over the last 20 years due mainly to its light weight, low adverse impact to the environment, and fair mechanical properties. Despite the development of the construction industry in the Kurdistan Region in Iraq (KRI) in recent years, timber product utilization is still very limited. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the feasibility of further utilizing timber-based products in the building industry in semi-arid regions using the KRI as a case study. A review of timber product utilization in the region was conducted first and the general properties of timber products were followed. Based on this, a survey focusing on the current situation and suitability of localized grown timber products was carried out to study the feasibility. This article concludes that the use of timber-based products in the KRI presents different barriers, with the availability in the market and technicality of construction with the material being the strongest ones. The article recommends that it is imperative to further research how to promote timber’s utilization in the KRI to be in line with sustainable development. Full article

Landsat-8 surface temperature and the European Space Agency land cover are used to assess the impact of land cover on the Urban Heat Island (UHI) and Urban Heat Sink (UHS). We analyzed five Moroccan cities selected for their different local climate, size, and typology during summer at three different spatial scales. The results show multiple causes defining the different forms and amplitudes of the UHI, namely: the ambient climate, the proximity to the sea, the presence of landscaped areas, and the color of building roofs and walls. Contrary to what was expected, the vegetation was not systematically an island of coolness, either because of its typology or its irrigation status. In the coastal cities of Tangier and Casablanca, UHIs around 20 °C are observed on the seaside, whereas a UHS of up to 11 °C is observed between the city center and the southern periphery of Casablanca. A moderate amplitude UHI of 7 °C is formed in the mountainous city of Ifrane. For cities built in desert-like environments, well-defined UHSs between 9 °C and 12 °C are observed in Smara and Marrakech, respectively. At a finer scale, towns recorded lower temperatures than their immediate surroundings, which are attributed to evaporation from irrigated plants. Full article