Abstract:

According to the World Bank 2008, the informal inhabitants present 65.6 % of Cairo population that is equal to 10.5 of 16.2 million inhabitants. Despite plentiful governmental efforts for three decades, and in response to the millennium goals, community participation was sought as a key towards solution. However, most inhabitants refuse to leave their settlements, reject proposed rehabilitation projects, and vandalize urban projects proposed! It is argued that this failure is due to one major factor, which is the "exclusion" of the informal settlements, treating them as a paradoxical phenomenon between the perception of government from one side and the informal inhabitants on the other side. It is argued that the urban remaking of Cairo is taking place at the expenses of excluding the mass of the “unwanted poor” …
Several questions are evoked here; how can we, as educators, contribute to responsibilities required to developing informal areas? How can we exploit the credibility of the design education in meeting the enormous ethical and intellectual challenge of community development of informal settlements? What are the objectives, the content and the methodologies of such education to allow future architects meet their expected roles?
From retrospection, Aristotle, Piaget and Dewey, then Kolb, and lately Honey and Mumford agreed on the liability of Experiential Learning as the process of making meaning from direct experience. As a personal response, and over ten years of study and practice of architectural education, features of a new educational paradigm are being formed along four years of a total five years of architectural education. Those courses are: Human Factors in Design, Design Methods and Research, Socio-Behavioral Studies in Architecture and Urban Design, and Participatory Design Theories and Techniques. Linking the courses with the issue of informal settlements in Cairo, and bridging the gap of class polarization were the pivots of my hidden curriculum that was structured on: firstly, developing a scientific understanding of a human association within its true setting. Secondly, engaging students with informal community in true action research. Thirdly, predicting and analyzing the trilogy of culture as user groups, behavioral patterns and physical settings in forming a culture of place. Fourthly, endorsing the role of the architect as facilitator and urban development through participation.
The aim of this paper is to introduce a model of Environmental Behavioral Studies in undergraduate architectural education through an Experiential Learning Approach. Its methodology is based on a theoretical foundation, exploring aspects of experiential learning. Then a practical part analyzes the mentioned series of Environmental-Behavioral-Studies courses that are devised based on an experiential learning approach. Evaluation of the model and discussion of the findings are expected to enrich the architectural education talk on two levels; the first is the mission of architectural education in response to the millennium goals regarding informal settlements, and the second is the direct contribution of Egyptian schools of architecture in the national developmental agendas regarding Cairo's informal settlements.

Keywords:

informal settlements, experiential learning, environmental-behavioral studies, human factors, research methods, community particiapation methods.