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The professional website of Professor Ashraf M. Salama with links to collections of publications and downloadable materials
Research at the intersection of people, environments, and knowledge production takes many forms — from participatory digital tools that give citizens a voice in shaping their cities, to transnational educational initiatives that redefine how architecture is taught across cultures and borders, to evidence-based investigations into how cities withstand and recover from crisis. The three projects featured here exemplify this breadth: YouWalk — YourVoice, YourCity (2023-2025) advances technology-enabled co-assessment of urban open spaces and campus environments; TRANSABE-EDU (2024-2025) develops a cross-cultural transdisciplinary model for postgraduate education in architecture and the built environment; and From Crises to Urban Resilience, Health, and the Environment in Europe (2021-2022), supported by the World Health Organization - Europe Office, examines how European cities can build more adaptive, equitable, and sustainable futures in an era of compounding crises. These projects demonstrate how rigorous, collaborative research can generate tools, frameworks, outputs, and partnerships that extend well beyond the academy.
Research at the intersection of people, environments, and knowledge production takes many forms — from participatory digital tools that give citizens a voice in shaping their cities, to transnational educational initiatives that redefine how architecture is taught across cultures and borders, to evidence-based investigations into how cities withstand and recover from crisis. The three projects featured here exemplify this breadth: YouWalk — YourVoice, YourCity (2023-2025) advances technology-enabled co-assessment of urban open spaces and campus environments; TRANSABE-EDU (2024-2025) develops a cross-cultural transdisciplinary model for postgraduate education in architecture and the built environment; and From Crises to Urban Resilience, Health, and the Environment in Europe (2021-2022), supported by the World Health Organization - Europe Office, examines how European cities can build more adaptive, equitable, and sustainable futures in an era of compounding crises. These projects demonstrate how rigorous, collaborative research can generate tools, frameworks, outputs, and partnerships that extend well beyond the academy.
YouWalk — YourVoice, YourCity
Co-Assessment of Urban Open Spaces and Campus Environments - 2023-2025
YouWalk — YourVoice, YourCity Co-Assessment of Urban Open Spaces and Campus Environments
This project introduces a digital platform and two free mobile applications — YouWalk-UOS and YouWalk-YouReclaim — developed to enable the co-assessment of urban open spaces, campus buildings, and public environments. Conceived by Ashraf M. Salama and developed with Madhavi P. Patil at the Department of Architecture and Built Environment, University of Northumbria at Newcastle, the platform advances participatory design by harnessing technology-enabled open-source tools that empower citizens, students, professionals, and decision-makers to actively evaluate the buildings and spaces they experience.
Co-assessment is a collaborative process through which multiple stakeholders — including residents, architects, urban planners, local authorities, and community organisations — develop a shared understanding of the quality, functionality, and overall experience of built environments. By involving users directly in the assessment process, the platform generates evidence-based insights that bridge the gap between user needs, design intent, and policy outcomes.
YouWalk-UOS facilitates the co-assessment of any urban open space across three validated dimensions — functional, social, and perceptual — using a 6-point Likert scale across twelve criteria per dimension. YouWalk-YouReclaim, developed with Jane Arnfield, extends this approach to campus environments, assessing buildings across six dimensions (context, building components, interface, wayfinding, socio-spatial, and comfort) and campus open spaces across three dimensions. Both applications are freely available on iOS and Android, and are applicable to any urban open space or campus environment of the user's choice.
The platform serves a broad range of users and beneficiaries: engaged citizens gain a voice in shaping the environments they inhabit; architects and urban designers gain direct user feedback to inform evidence-based decisions; academics access real-world co-assessment data for research and pedagogy; and municipalities and decision-makers obtain structured community insights to guide urban planning and resource allocation.
Inspired by participatory design tools developed by Henry Sanoff at North Carolina State University in the early 1990s, the platform was made possible by an internal grant from the Faculty of Engineering and Environment, University of Northumbria. The two applications are underpinned by a body of peer-reviewed research published across four articles:
Salama, A. M., & Patil, M. P. (2024). Integrating Technology into Urban Open Space Assessment: The 'YouWalk-UOS' Approach. European Journal of Geography, 15(1), 6–10.
Salama, A. M., & Patil, M. P. (2024). "YouWalk-UOS" — Technology-Enabled and User-Centred Assessment of Urban Open Spaces. Open House International, 49(5), 1015–1029.
Patil, M. P., Salama, A. M., Arnfield, J., & Alvanides, S. (2026). YouWalk-YouReclaim: A Co-Assessment Approach for Active University Campus Environments. Smart and Sustainable Built Environment, 15(5), 1663–1694.
Salama, A. M., & Patil, M. P. (2025). A Mobile Application Tool for Co-Assessing Urban Open Spaces — A Test Case of the Grey's Monument, Newcastle, UK. Journal of Urban Design, 30(4), 493–519.
© 2023–2024 Ashraf M. Salama and Madhavi P. Patil · University of Northumbria, Newcastle, England
TRANSABE-EDU — Transcending Architecture and Built Environment Frontiers
A Cross-Cultural Educational Initiative 2024-2025
TRANSABE-EDU — Transcending Architecture and Built Environment Frontiers A Cross-Cultural Educational Initiative
This project is a one-year collaboration between Northumbria University (UK) and Galala University (Egypt), funded by the British Council's Transnational Education (TNE) Fund. Its purpose is to develop a robust teaching and collaboration model, alongside a specialised MSc suite, that advances UK and Egyptian qualifications in architecture and the built environment. Galala University, which inaugurated its first cohort in Architecture in 2025, is positioned to offer cutting-edge MSc and PhD programmes as a direct outcome of this initiative.
The project addresses global challenges including sustainability, urbanisation, technology integration, cultural preservation, resilience, and community engagement. Working through a structured four-phase methodology, the team benchmarked international best practices in transdisciplinary and transnational education models; hosted dual-country workshops and surveys to define stakeholder needs; conducted online curriculum mapping to align UK and Egyptian qualification frameworks, articulate core competencies, sequence modules, and define learning outcomes and assessment rubrics; and synthesised findings into detailed recommendations on module design, delivery formats, assessment strategies, and admissions pathways.
Key outcomes include establishing a scalable proof-of-concept for deep UK–non-UK partnership with shared quality assurance and blended delivery; building Galala University's capacity in transdisciplinary curriculum design, digital integration, and international accreditation; and expanding Northumbria's global reach through new modules, joint research, and access to Middle Eastern fieldwork — collectively setting a new benchmark for transnational, transdisciplinary education in architecture and the built environment.
The specialised MSc suite focuses on key thematic areas including Retrofitting and Adaptive Re-Use, Heritage Conservation, Global Urbanism, Sustainability and Resilience, Spatial Analysis, and Design for Health and Well-being. Findings have been disseminated through a comprehensive project report, binational seminars, and a dedicated online platform.
The project generated two peer-reviewed publications. The first presents the cross-cultural educational framework developed through the initiative:
Patil, M. P., Mahgoub, Y. O. M., Salama, A. M., Tahoun, Z., Johnston, L., Hamza, N., & Al-Oufy, A. (2025). Cultivating Sustainable Architecture and Built Environments Through Cross-Cultural Education. Smart and Sustainable Built Environment. Advance online publication.
The second is a technical report presenting the full transdisciplinary MSc framework co-created through the UK–Egypt partnership:
Patil, M., Salama, A. M., Mahgoub, Y. O. M., Tahoun, Z., Johnston, L., Hamza, N., & Al-Oufy, A. (2026). TRANSABE-EDU: Transcending Architecture and Built Environment Frontiers — A Cross-Cultural Educational Initiative. ABC2: Journal of Architecture, Building, Construction, and Cities, 2026(03), 111–127.
© 2024–2025 TRANSABE-EDU · Northumbria University, Newcastle, UK, and Galala University, Egypt,
UK Principal Investigator: Ashraf M. Salama - Egypt's Co-Investigator Yasser O. Mahgoub
From Crises to Urban Resilience, Health, and the Environment in Europe in collaboration with UN Habitat and the World Health Organization (WHO) European Region, Bonn/Brussels · 2021–2022
From Crises to Urban Resilience, Health, and the Environment in Europe in collaboration with UN Habitat and the World Health Organization (WHO) European Region, Bonn/Brussels
How do cities survive, adapt, and ultimately transform when crisis after crisis disrupts the very fabric of urban life? What happens when disruption is no longer the exception but the norm — when heatwaves, pandemics, economic shocks, political fragmentation, and social inequality collide and compound? This WHO-funded project, led by Professor Ashraf M. Salama as Principal Investigator in collaboration with UN Habitat, set out to answer these questions from a European context, predicated on real-world evidence, lived experiences, and the lessons cities have learned on the frontlines of change. The research examined how more than 20 European cities responded to the dual challenges of crisis and long-term sustainability. It explored how resilience and sustainability were understood by different urban stakeholders, what forms of governance emerged in response to crisis, how data and monitoring informed, or failed to inform, decision-making, and what lessons could be drawn for future urban planning and policy. A central conceptual contribution of the project is the notion of 'crisis entanglement': the recognition that urban challenges rarely occur in isolation, but rather interact, overlap, and exacerbate one another, demanding integrated rather than siloed responses.
The study identified five critical misconceptions that consistently undermine urban resilience efforts across different city contexts: confusing normality with safety; assuming resilience has a single, universal meaning; treating collaboration as automatic and spontaneous; believing that data alone drives better decisions; and expecting that crisis will naturally catalyse transformation. Against these misconceptions, the research articulated five clear pathways toward resilient cities: institutionally cultivated and sustained collaboration between governments, communities, and civic organisations; adaptive governance that embraces flexibility and learning over rigid prediction; evidence-led monitoring systems that translate information into prioritised action; equity as a non-negotiable foundation that protects the most vulnerable; and nature-based solutions that address climate goals while strengthening social cohesion and mental well-being.
The project demonstrated that the most resilient cities are not those that plan for one specific crisis, but those that cultivate a collective mindset of adaptation, openness, and critical reflection — before, during, and after disruption. Its findings continue to resonate in an era of accelerating polycrisis, where the inadequacy of business-as-usual planning models has never been more apparent.
The project culminated in the report European Cities: Building Better Urban Futures. Research findings were subsequently developed into a peer-reviewed article co-authored with Dr Madhavi P. Patil (University of Northumbria) and Dr Laura MacLean (University of Strathclyde):
Salama, A. M., Patil, M. P., & MacLean, L. (2024). Urban Resilience and Sustainability Through and Beyond Crisis — Evidence-Based Analysis and Lessons Learned from Selected European Cities. Smart and Sustainable Built Environment, 13(2), 444–467.
The research has also been disseminated to broader audiences through an invited blog published by Emerald Publishing in October 2025, in which the research team reflect on the enduring relevance of the findings and issue a call to action for policymakers, planners, researchers, and citizens alike:
Resilient by Design — Building Cities to Adapt Through Crisis Emerald Publishing Opinion & Blog, 1st October 2025 Professor Ashraf M. Salama, Dr Madhavi P. Patil & Dr Laura MacLean
© 2021–2022 Principal Investigator: Ashraf M. Salama
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