Sustainability from Hassan Fathy perspective – The ancient passive tools between theory and apply

Hassan Fathy (1900-1989), is a renowned Egyptian architect who was dubbed the father of architecture for the poor. During his life time, he studied intensively the vernacular solutions to create sustainable architecture. By using some old passive tools, H. Fathy did more than any other architect in the middle east to encourage the eco-architecture. After his death, many architects in the middle east, tried to revive the tools which were implementing in his work towards sustainability. Unfortunately, the results of using such techniques recently were disappointing. Therefore, this study discusses point of departure from applied vision by Fathy and those after him within the descriptive and comparative approach. The result showed that contemporary architects imitated Fathy's tools formality, but couldn't grasp the thermal performance mechanism behind such tools. Furthermore, they didn't take into considerations the social mobility of the Egyptian community between Fathy's time and the contemporary works of those after him.