Evaluating the Health Performance of Mass Housing Projects in Egypt Lighting Design of Dar Masr Project, New Damietta

The Egyptian government has recently established many governmental mass housing projects to meet the housing needs nationwide. These projects are characterized by their unified repetitive design that rarely consider geographic, climatic and social variations from one site to another. The study objectives are to examine the health performance of mass housing projects; “Dar Misr” as an example. Dar Misr consists of 150,000 units distributed over 15 different cities, and is fully finished with unified electrical installations and preinstalled luminaires. The study examines the health performance of the project’s lighting design, both natural and electrical light, using the “WELLV2 rating system as an evaluation tool method. WELLV2 is especially designed to rate buildings according to their health performance to eliminate the phenomena of related building illnesses worldwide. Field measurements and computer assisted simulations were done using luxmeter and ReluxTM tools. Lighting design of the study unit was examined in terms of intensity, uniformity, dimmability, glare, flickering, color reproduction and Melanopic ratio for both natural and electrical light sources. The study revealed lack of light intensity, improper light temperature, insufficient uniformity, high glare rates, high flickering, and low CRI values, all resulting in significant health impacts like visual blurring, eye fatigue, strain, headache, and insomnia. Previous studies have examined the performance of mass housing projects in terms of functionality, feasibility and sustainability, but this study examines their health impact and gives recommendations and modifications to improve their health-related performance. Further research is recommended to reveal the health impacts of mass housing projects in other design aspects (e.g. acoustics, thermal performance, ergonomics, etc.), to alleviate the possible negative health outcomes over thousands of families for years to come.