TY - JFULL AU - Aly Mohamed El Husseiny and Azza Ezz Abdelkader PY - 2017/5/ TI - Impact of Flexibility on Residential Buildings in Egypt T2 - International Journal of Architectural and Environmental Engineering SP - 537 EP - 550 VL - 11 SN - 1307-6892 UR - https://publications.waset.org/pdf/10007429 PU - World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology NX - Open Science Index 124, 2017 N2 - There is a critical thin line between freedom of choice and randomness. The distance between imagination and perception and between perception and execution varies depending on numerous factors. While in developed areas residents have the opportunity and abilities to build flexible homes, residents in developing areas create their own dwellings in informal settlements, even though none of them is comfortable at home in the long run. This paper explores three factors: What residents really need, what they do with limited flexibility, and what they do when there are no limits, as in the case of informal settlements. This paper studies alteration to residential buildings and how they connect to the changes in people’s lifecycle in all past cases. This study also examines all approaches to flexibility, focusing on a social approach. The results of this study are based on three practical studies: Interviews with residents in an informal settlement (Eshash Mahfouz in Minya in Egypt), a civil study of buildings in a middle-class district, and a survey of residents from many countries, including Egypt, and interviews with a number of them to determine residents’ needs and the extent of renovations they made or would like to make to their homes. ER -