Maha Basha

School of Architecture and Landscape

PhD Research Student

Maha Basha
Profile picture of Maha Basha
mafbasha1@sheffield.ac.uk

Full contact details

Maha Basha
School of Architecture and Landscape
Arts Tower
Western Bank
91Ö±²¥
S10 2TN
Profile

Maha Basha is an Assistant lecturer at the Faculty of Engineering, Architecture Department at Ain Shams University (ASU), Cairo, Egypt, where she has been teaching since 2015. Also, she was engaged in teaching (Design studios and project management) for undergraduate students at the German University in Cairo (GUC). Maha obtained her double master’s degree in 2017 from both Ain Shams University in Egypt and the University of Stuttgart in Germany. This allowed her to gain international exposure and knowledge about the interdisciplinarity of integrated urbanism and sustainable design. Besides, she has worked in the Architecture industry in Egypt as a design architect and interior designer since her graduation in 2013.

Maha's PhD project started in 2019 and it is based on her MScs study, which was conducted in one of the peripheral areas in Sinai Peninsula with the Bedouin community. She found that there is a need to develop appropriate design ideas for the existing Bedouin houses in Sinai that will enhance their energy performance. Adapting autonomous renewable energy systems such as PVs can secure a reliable sustainable electrification source for those houses, however, the appropriateness of these ideas requires a general understanding of consumption practices, cultural values and other related arrangements in this specific context.

Research interests

Project title: 
Practice Approach for Appropriate Renewable Energy Home Retrofit using PV System Uptake in Sinai, Egypt.

Project outline:
Retrofitting homes using autonomous PV system, can be a potential and challenging intervention. High expectations of adapting culture to this new reality might not be achievable, yet tailoring the technology to meet inhabitants' needs could be the right target. Maha is working on an action research project which aims to develop energy practices scenarios and design guidelines for retrofitting houses in Sinai, Egypt with renewable energy systems (RES). A critical participatory and ethnographic approach will be used to investigate the research enquiry by relying on the theoretical assemblage of Critical Realism and Practice theory. The questions that she addressed in her research are: how can PV system be effectively applied on Bedouin houses? And, how can we interrelate between different arrangements of practices and RES to develop appropriate energy retrofit for Bedouin houses?

Primary supervisor: 
Professor Fionn Stevenson

Co-supervisor: 
Dr Steve Connelly

Date started: 01/10/2019

Research group

Design, Engagement and Practice