Towards Sustainable Urban Development: The Application of Islamic Principles and Traditional Knowledge to Achieve a Sustainable Urban Form

Abstract

The international UN Sustainable Development Goals and Agenda (SDGs) recommend the integration of local cultures and traditions into the process of sustainable development. In recognition of the importance of local people and community practices in participatory planning, this study examined the evolution of the concept of sustainability and international efforts towards sustainable development, while focusing on the vernacular forms in the traditional Islamic built environment, aiming to identify sustainable planning principles and strategies that are derived from the local culture. To achieve this goal, the study developed a principle-based assessment framework to assess urban sustainability in the traditional built environment. The proposed assessment framework was tested on a selected case study of the Old Town of Al-Ula, Saudi Arabia. This 800-year-old mud-brick town offers a representative case of the region’s traditional Islamic built environment. Semi- structured interviews with local inhabitants and experts were thematically analysed to trace the oral history of the Old Town. In addition, spatial and geographic information system (GIS) analysis was used at multiple scales to identify embedded traditional sustainable practices and strategies. The findings demonstrate that such traditional settlements can achieve high levels of environmental and socio-economic sustainability. The study concludes with several sustainable principles inherited from the legacy of vernacular forms and the traditional urban environment, which can inform current planning practices for specific regions or cultures, particularly other Islamic regions or cultures with similarities to the Arabic-Islamic context. In summary, the study makes a valuable contribution to research on identifying indigenous sustainable planning principles.