International Journal of Scientific Research and Engineering Development-– Volume 3 Issue 6, 2020 Available at www.ijsred.com ISSN: 2581-7175 ©IJSRED: All Rights are Reserved Page 1 The role of flexibility and adaptability in achieving functional efficiency in the informal housing context in Egypt Mohamed Alboghdady*, Osama Abdel Hadi** *(Architecture Department, Thebes Academy for engineering, Cairo Email: Mohamedalboghdady@gmail.com) ** (Architecture Department, Faculty of fine Arts, Helwan University, Cairo Email: Osama.abdelhady2013@yahoo.com) ---------------------------------------- ************************---------------------------------- Abstract: Egypt, as one of developing countries in the world has a massive population growth and a deficit in the housing supply for the low income people. The recent public Housing programs in Egypt have a design tendency of the production of a prototypical and a preconceived housing blocks that were built according to minimum space requirements to minimize the costs. The planning system of the public housing has a "top-down" approach with the imposition of conventional housing schemes resulted in the dissatisfaction of the housing units. The informal housing sector has a great contribution in the housing provision and with its relatively affordable housing blocks attracted most of the middle-income people to build their homes. Flexibility is a prominent consideration in the design of housing to be socially, economically and environmentally viable. The research investigates flexibility aspects in the built-up homes in the informal housing context in Egypt. Flexible housing responds to inhabitants’ needs throughout time. In other words, it evolves from the change in residents’ requirements and needs over time. The aim of this research is to review different methods and techniques to achieve flexibility and the potential of creating functional efficacy in the housing spaces. To achieve this goal, the research reviews the terminologies of flexibility, adaptability and the related concepts, it also review the prominent international case studies in flexibility in the twentieth century to discover the different methods and techniques of the architects. Keywords — flexibility, functional efficiency, Informal housing, Low-income people. ---------------------------------------- ************************---------------------------------- I. INTRODUCTION The urban population in the developing world will double by the year 2030, which means that we have less than 20 years to build as much urban housing as was built in the past 6,000 years (Goethert, 2010). During the World Urban Forum 6 of Naples, Italy, the UN-Habitat announced that the organization is in the process of setting up a “Global Housing Strategy to the Year 2025” (GHS2025). According to the first information sheet circulated by the UN-Habitat, the GHS2025 will advance the Habitat Agenda theme of “adequate shelter for all” and prepare a new vision of housing through a global strategy document emerging from broad-based national, regional and global consultation processes. The inadequate public policies resulted in the lack of adequate and affordable housing, which in turn resulted in over 860 million people around the world living in slums and informal housing (UN-Habitat, 2012). Providing an adequate and affordable shelter for all is a global problem that needs to be addressed and discussed according to the lessons learned from the experiences of the different approaches that are RESEARCH ARTICLE OPEN ACCESS