Papers by Dr. Nahith Al-Qemaqchi
European Journal of Engineering Education, 2025
The interaction between teacher and student in an architecture design studio is an important part... more The interaction between teacher and student in an architecture design studio is an important part of the teaching/learning process because it generates a kind of conversation that solidates the 'learning by doing' of teaching. This paper attempts to closely examine the jury system during the design assessment session. By monitoring the jury examination of several architectural schools' fifth-stage graduation projects this paper highlights the various biases that are present during those sessions. The results revealed that most biases that appear during the assessment sessions are those that primarily occur when jurors focus their attention on one or two options despite the presence of other options. Early identification and disclosure of jury panels, together with the strategic scheduling of evaluation sessions, can alleviate biases that emerge during jury assessments and potentially convert those biases into beneficial and constructive inputs for the student's projects.
Architecture, 2025
Affordable housing has evolved to meet the difficulties of increased demand by offering acceptabl... more Affordable housing has evolved to meet the difficulties of increased demand by offering acceptable living spaces for middle-to low-income families and facilitating access to housing units based on their annual income. This research seeks to investigate the relationship between housing spacing standards and family desire for affordable multifamily housing. It sought to address the changes that were occurring in the internal spaces of multi-story housing because of the inhabitants' evolving needs. The study investigates the habitability of 25 residential apartments within 6 affordable multifamily housing compounds established in Sulaymaniyah city in Iraq in accordance with Iraqi housing standards. The results show that the rise in family size was the key reason for the considerable physical changes and enhancements that families made to their units. Crucially, the study found an explicit relationship: the wider the difference between the actual habitable space and the minimum Iraqi standards, the more frequently modifications occurred. This implies that inflexible space standards fail to fulfill the actual needs of low-income families, forcing occupants to make alterations despite the possible deterioration of the unit's internal environment. The study contributes to the discourse on affordable housing in Iraq by offering empirical evidence of household-driven change and underscoring the necessity of incorporating adaptability into future affordable housing design policies.
The Scientific Journal of Cihan University – Sulaimaniya, 2024
Many countries around the world are concerned about children's playground performance, particular... more Many countries around the world are concerned about children's playground performance, particularly governments, and organizations, because of its importance in the child's life and the formation of his future behaviour. Playgrounds in open green areas are desirable and significant public places in the urban fabric because not only do they provide a space for children's play and growth outside the home but they support a healthy environment and adults’ activities. Two international organizations are working on children's needs, the (UNICEF), and IPA, (International Association for the Child's Right to Play), and both organizations are responsible for supporting children all over the world with humanitarian and developmental aid including child rights for play. Experts in the field understand that the social skills that children learn in the playground are often skills that they use for the rest of their lives and carry with them into adulthood; additionally, independent studies show that playgrounds are one of the most important places outside their homes, because of those above benefits this paper attempted to assess and check the suitability of a children's playground performance in Sulaymaniyah city to occupy the children's activity; thus, the main objective is to evaluate and find solutions related to improving the performance of children's playgrounds through investigation using criteria (formed as a set of criteria which are from deferent sources mentioned it in the table (1)), developed it for that purpose, and applied the criteria on (10) neighborhood units in both government and investment sectors, it is clear that the children playground performance in the investment sector is better than the government sector, the other objective of the paper is to present the effect of play and playgrounds on kids and attract the neighborhood community to different activities.
The Scientific Journal of Cihan University – Sulaimaniya, 2023
When designing, or developing any city, whatever its size, the biggest problem facing the archite... more When designing, or developing any city, whatever its size, the biggest problem facing the architect is choosing the best location for public facilities within the urban fabric. To this day, no scientific computational method has been established to be used to find the best site from an architectural perspective for a public service buildings that takes advantage of new digital technologies.
The objective of this paper is to formulate a methodology that takes advantage of new digital technologies and standardizes a set of specific measurable metrics in form of 3D matrix.
This can be achieved by formulating a criteria for measuring the necessary factors required to distinguish between a set of candidate sites and find best suitable location for the construction of a specific building, based on Augmented Reality (AR) technology and benefiting from the data provided by the Geographic Information System (GIS) and trying to answer important questions: Are Augmented Reality (AR) technology an appropriate methodology to correctly find suitable location for newly constructed buildings? Will it really enhance the architect's experience and improve his performance? It appears that the use of digital technology in any applied field improves the accuracy and task completion time of the result, is this also true for the problem under discussion? Accordingly, setting up clear and unified standard measuring criteria agreed upon all architect and urban planners as these measures will have tangible values, , thus enriching the experience of both the client and the architect.
Revista Amazonia Investiga
The design of healthcare buildings as hospitals is a rather complex architectural task and is bei... more The design of healthcare buildings as hospitals is a rather complex architectural task and is being considered as projects of high cost, but indispensable, given their role in preserving human health. The sustainability of services offered by healthcare projects is a paramount necessity for human societies; therefore, in addition to architectural standards applied in a design process, new tools are introduced by the space syntax community in the form of specified programs to provide an advanced method of assessing the effectiveness of any design configuration. This research aims to evaluate the effect of applying the software of (Depthmap X) on a selected new hospital design to measure the nature of visual communication between the different wards of the most active floor (the ground floor) and the connectivity of various kinetic systems of the ground floor with the main entrances. The paper identifies the efficiency of the hospital performances in terms of visual connectivity. It a...
Interaction Design and Architecture(s), 2021
Walkable university campuses require comprehensive planning and design that considers the campus ... more Walkable university campuses require comprehensive planning and design that considers the campus as a whole, which means that buildings and the surrounding environment should not be segmented from a walkability point of view. Without considering the walkability criterion, the spatial organisation of the teaching buildings on university campuses may negatively impact pedestrian speed. This paper outline a comparative study of the old and new campuses of Sulaimani University, which have different types of spatial organisation, to demonstrate the impact of campus layout design on pedestrian speed. The aim is to show how university campus design and spatial organisation type affect pedestrian speed and determine the best type of campus layout design from a walkability point of view. For the empirical study, data were collected through video recordings and observing pedestrian speed between 8:00 am and 9:00 am for 15 days on both campuses. The recorded data were then transformed into num...
The Transformation of Knowledge in Urban Design Studio
The purpose of this study is to examine how do architectural students transform their knowledge a... more The purpose of this study is to examine how do architectural students transform their knowledge and data obtained at the design session, to form their decisions in the various design phases. For this purpose, a model that examines the transformation of knowledge by means of analyzing students representations, has been developed. This model was correlated with the data collection model about the design problem. Solutions demonstrated through time line, indicated the relationship between the two models, and were examined out if the designer was reformed data spatially, functionally, symbolically, typologically, technologically, or socially. The implementation of the proposed models has been fulfilled by a case study carried out at the urban design studio at the Department of Architecture at Mosul University which protracted for one semester, and the results were demonstrated graphically to declare the impact of each item of the second model on the various design phases.
The Impact of Transparency on Fostering Sustainable Behavior in Educational Buildings-Buildings of Mosul University as a case study
Sustainability is no longer unchartered territory for research scholars. Its significance has inc... more Sustainability is no longer unchartered territory for research scholars. Its significance has increased with the growing effects of the alarming consumption of natural resources; after we saw rapidly natural treasures drain in the modern age. It has been theorized that the built environment plays a significant role in the life of users, and the architects can consider several factors of the human-environment relationship in the development of interior space. Transparency of space was one of the main considerations targeted in order to create a sustainable built environment. This paper tries to draw the effect of transparency on the behavioral actions and their relationship with the built environment, through its impact on dynamic termed "personal space" area, which plays a major role in regulating individual behavior, and interactions with the rest of the individuals in the environment. The study assumes that the high degree of transparency supports sustainable behavior am...
Revista Amazonia Investiga
The design of healthcare buildings as hospitals is a rather complex architectural task and is bei... more The design of healthcare buildings as hospitals is a rather complex architectural task and is being considered as projects of high cost, but indispensable, given their role in preserving human health. The sustainability of services offered by healthcare projects is a paramount necessity for human societies; therefore, in addition to architectural standards applied in a design process, new tools are introduced by the space syntax community in the form of specified programs to provide an advanced method of assessing the effectiveness of any design configuration. This research aims to evaluate the effect of applying the software of (Depthmap X) on a selected new hospital design to measure the nature of visual communication between the different wards of the most active floor (the ground floor) and the connectivity of various kinetic systems of the ground floor with the main entrances. The paper identifies the efficiency of the hospital performances in terms of visual connectivity. It a...
Interaction Design and Architecture(s), 2021
Walkable university campuses require comprehensive planning and design that considers the campus ... more Walkable university campuses require comprehensive planning and design that considers the campus as a whole, which means that buildings and the surrounding environment should not be segmented from a walkability point of view. Without considering the walkability criterion, the spatial organisation of the teaching buildings on university campuses may negatively impact pedestrian speed. This paper outline a comparative study of the old and new campuses of Sulaimani University, which have different types of spatial organisation, to demonstrate the impact of campus layout design on pedestrian speed. The aim is to show how university campus design and spatial organisation type affect pedestrian speed and determine the best type of campus layout design from a walkability point of view. For the empirical study, data were collected through video recordings and observing pedestrian speed between 8:00 am and 9:00 am for 15 days on both campuses. The recorded data were then transformed into num...
Revista Amazonia Investiga, 2021
A residence strongly influences the lifestyle of its occupants and may be a determining factor fo... more A residence strongly influences the lifestyle of its occupants and may be a determining factor for the family's quality of life. To maintain the comfort and well-being of its occupants, each dwelling should be adequate for the household. The dwelling should therefore provide a habitable and comfortable environment. Housing space standards in many countries set the conditions for achieving these objectives and generally regulate the overall sizes of individual rooms in addition to the layouts of dwellings. This paper seeks to explore the relationship between habitable area ratios and other component area ratios, such as the structure area, the service area, the circulation area and the open space area, in the context of Iraqi single-family houses. Therefore, this study aims to answer two key questions: Is the habitable area ratio among other ratios compatible with Iraqi housing standards? And does it affect the performance of the units? To this end, the paper adopted a methodolog...
Augmenting the Hadba Minaret Role as A Landmark in the city of Mosul
Sulaimani journal for engineering sciences, 2015
Al-Hadba, the oblique Minaret of the historic Grand Mosque is considered as the famous and the mo... more Al-Hadba, the oblique Minaret of the historic Grand Mosque is considered as the famous and the most important landmark in the old town of Mosul as it is the oldest architectural monument which have been built in 568 AH – 1172 AC. Till now, as a visual landmark of 45 meters height, it isthe icon that gives the city its identity across nine centuries, which represents as anobvious indicator for orienting the direction of inhabitants movements in the old built fabric from remote distance, and as a component of this environment, it is characterized as a vital value for the visual views those can be seen through alleys that lead to the Grand Mosque, consequently, presenting richness, continuity and variety for such visual scenes. As a result of disorder of urban built, random buildings, unconsidered construction and planning decisions, opening new streets in the old city in the past century, and the lack of prior urban design dimension which gives the Minaret its importance to the surrounding areas of the mosque, all that led to reduce the Minaret role as an urban landmark, besides creating vision coverage that prevented the Minaret from being as a visual mark. This paper attempts to study all visual districts in Mosul city in which the Minaret currently can be seen through alleys, in any viewpoint, direction and skyline with determining the built constructions that cover or reduce the visual sight toward the Minaret , evaluating the extent and level of its perception as a landmark on pedestrians level, identifying the best visual positions in the visual sequence, and presenting planning and urban recommendations about how to improve the Minaret role as a monumental and architectural landmark in the city of Mosul.
International Journal of Heritage in the Digital Era, 2012
The conservation of intangible heritage in historical regions has recently become a progressively... more The conservation of intangible heritage in historical regions has recently become a progressively important topic in the international level. Till recently, in the protection process of historical cities, the concentration has been on the tangible cultural heritage, built environment and historical buildings in old districts ;while safeguarding the intangible cultural heritage has been generally neglected. This paper aims at highlighting the significant role of the intangible heritage in the urban renewal policies of old historical districts. It undertakes the conservation and urban renewal activities of Mosul Old City (MOC) as a case study, and it explains that there are broad distinctions in various aspects between space structural analysis and intangible elements investigation, which designates that the intangible elements do not correlate to material or synthetic items within the urban fabric in the same high grade that is associated with the inhabitants memory of the historical area. It emphasizes the importance of the preservation of intangible heritage besides the tangible one in the urban renewal policies.
Amazonia Investiga, 2022
The design of healthcare buildings as hospitals is a rather complex architectural task and is bei... more The design of healthcare buildings as hospitals is a rather complex architectural task and is being considered as projects of high cost, but indispensable, given their role in preserving human health. The sustainability of services offered by healthcare projects is a paramount necessity for human societies; therefore, in addition to architectural standards applied in a design process, new tools are introduced by the space syntax community in the form of specified programs to provide an advanced method of assessing the effectiveness of any design configuration. This research aims to evaluate the effect of applying the software of (Depthmap X) on a selected new hospital design to measure the nature of visual communication between the different wards of the most active floor (the ground floor) and the connectivity of various kinetic systems of the ground floor with the main entrances. The paper identifies the efficiency of the hospital performances in terms of visual connectivity. It also shows that a slight change made in the hospital configuration in the design alternatives could lead to a significant impact on the visual relationship between the hospital domains.
AL-Rafdain Engineering Journal (AREJ)
Governments attempt to take advantage of cultural heritage that is rich in old cities, and work o... more Governments attempt to take advantage of cultural heritage that is rich in old cities, and work on its rehabilitation to achieve many goals well known to people who works in the urban renewal field. Like other Arabic Islamic cities, Mosul is characterized with its richness of cultural and spiritual heritage and all its alleys tell the story of building and their memories. The most recent studies on inter urban renewal for many cities in Iraq (including the project of urban renewal of the old city of Mosul, done at end of 2009) adopted by the General Directorate of Urban Planning, which has referred to a number of expert companies, is a clear example of that projects which the country took an interest in it recently. Although the project has prepared surveys of the case and has adopted strategy of identifying a set of thematic routes that formed essential arteries of the urban area of the old city of Mosul, but that strategy remained in many cases, vague and far from the reality of the urban space and its potentiality. This paper attempts to evaluate the strategy of the election of such routes carried out by that project through the findings of that study on one hand. In addition, between the reality of the surveying of a number of those routes on the other hand, to distinguish the compatibility of the real situation with the goals of that project and then the validity of those strategies. The results declare that the election of such routs is far away from actuality, so that it is true to announce that this strategy is invalid with in the corresponding of potentiality of the actual case of Mosul city.
The Revista Amazonia Investiga, 2021
A residence strongly influences the lifestyle of its occupants and may be a determining factor fo... more A residence strongly influences the lifestyle of its occupants and may be a determining factor for the family's quality of life. To maintain the comfort and well-being of its occupants, each dwelling should be adequate for the household. The dwelling should therefore provide a habitable and comfortable environment. Housing space standards in many countries set the conditions for achieving these objectives and generally regulate the overall sizes of individual rooms in addition to the layouts of dwellings.
This paper seeks to explore the relationship between habitable area ratios and other component areas ratios, such as the structure area, the service area, the circulation area, and the open space area, in the context of Iraqi single-family houses. Therefore, this study aims to answer two key questions: Is the habitable area ratio among other ratios compatible with Iraqi housing standards? And does it affect the performance of the units? To this end, the paper adopted a methodology for calculating each area ratio in several newly established complexes in Sulaimaniya City and their relationship to the size of different plot areas for assessing the habitability and efficiency of different house plot areas.
Interaction Design and Architecture(s) Journal - IxD&A, 2021
Walkable university campuses require comprehensive planning and design that considers the campus ... more Walkable university campuses require comprehensive planning and design that considers the campus as a whole, which means that buildings and the surrounding environment should not be segmented from a walkability point of view. Without considering the walkability criterion, the spatial organisation of the teaching buildings on university campuses may negatively impact pedestrian speed. This paper outline a comparative study of the old and new campuses of Sulaimani University, which have different types of spatial organisation, to demonstrate the impact of campus layout design on pedestrian speed. The aim is to show how university campus design and spatial organisation type affect pedestrian speed and determine the best type of campus layout design from a walkability point of view. For the empirical study, data were collected through video recordings and observing pedestrian speed between 8:00 am and 9:00 am for 15 days on both campuses. The recorded data were then transformed into numerical values such as speed, and different types of walking. In a second step, data about physical characteristics of campuses design were collected, such as walkway length, width and level, and number of pedestrian walkway intersections. Finally, using multiple linear regression analysis, a mathematical model was designed to test campus spatial organisation on pedestrian speed. In this way, comparing the results for the campuses, the findings reveal that campus layout design and walkway characteristics affect pedestrian speed with different impact ratios. The results indicate the best spatial organisation type for walkable campuses.
Article, 2020
The cultural heritage plays an important role in determining the identity of any community. From ... more The cultural heritage plays an important role in determining the identity of any community. From this point of view, the academic curriculum in many architectural schools tries to enhance the students' vision for the cultural heritage by introducing that heritage as a main source of inspiration in the creation of their design product. This comes in various ways, most of which are based on the employing of visual elements and external details showing their impact on the facades of the design projects as a blind repetition of that legacy, while some schools are investigating the ideology behind that product and direct their students to study the deep structure of that heritage and reproduce it to more contemporary architecture. This paper aims to investigate the extent to which the academic output of the students' products which were chosen as a shortlist by (Tamayouz Excellence Award for Iraqi Students) can reflect the iconic, canonic, pragmatic, and analogy depiction of that heritage, and thus its ability to create a product with a deep local cultural vision. This is done by examining those output of several Iraqi architectural final stage students by analyzing those projects according to the structural elements that formulate their concepts, to point out those trends that help the promoting out values of identity within their works. The research found that the projects which inspired the heritage were not the most likely to run for the final positions. The reason for this lies in the superficial approach in which these projects dealt with the heritage values, and the local culture has been limited to the inspiration of the just formal elements without going deeply into the intellectual depth of that heritage.
The Scientific Journal of Cihan University – Sulaimanyia (SJCUS), 2020
he historical emergence of the term (Islamic Architecture) has played an important role in the us... more he historical emergence of the term (Islamic Architecture) has played an important role in the use, to consolidate the belief in linking between the architectural achievements of the Muslims with the religion of Islam. It raises several problematic issues and a very vital question about, what is the relation between Islam and architecture.
The research attempts to reach the semantic depth of this term and discusses the problems it raises in order to judge its credibility in expressing the cultural heritage of the peoples that condemned Islamic Religion and its potential to create a common understanding among its users so that it does not fall into the trap of narrow regionalism and limited ideology and gives a comprehensive description of its implications.
Adopting an inductive methodology, the research initially asked several questions related to the term (Islamic Architecture) and to answer, it discussed the problems raised by that term, which relate to the form, content, and identity, in order to reach the accurate significance of the use of the term and thus determine its efficiency in the overall meaning description.
The Scientific Journal of Cihan University – Sulaimanyia (SJCUS), 2019
Globally, urban pieces in the form of Residential Cities are rising in an enormous rate since the... more Globally, urban pieces in the form of Residential Cities are rising in an enormous rate since the beginning of the 2000s. The spread of this new trend is mainly due to urban population growth and to man made crisis. In Kurdistan region of Iraq, particularly since 2003, major housing shortages lead to the appearance of so many small residential communities (called villages) which were considered at the time as a quick solution to the problem.. However, although these projects were designed and built by qualified companies, it remained to be questionable whether the planning and design criteria set by the State Commission of Housing have been implemented and if any of dweller’s feedback, whether positive or negative, have been evaluated.
With respect to the question of “to what extend the designers of the residential projects took the urban housing standards of the ministry of construction of Iraq into consideration “this study is to focus on the criteria of open spaces ratio in three existing urban housing projects in Sulaimany city in Iraq by taking into account the hypothesis which state that there is a significant ignorance of such criteria in the existing and upcoming urban residential projects.
The study adopts a methodology of direct comparison between the existing open areas ratio and the one required by the above mentioned planning and design criteria. The results show the residential projects have low level of implementation of the regulation, with comparatively small differences between the projects added to that is the fact that the inhabitants had low level of satisfaction.
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Papers by Dr. Nahith Al-Qemaqchi
The objective of this paper is to formulate a methodology that takes advantage of new digital technologies and standardizes a set of specific measurable metrics in form of 3D matrix.
This can be achieved by formulating a criteria for measuring the necessary factors required to distinguish between a set of candidate sites and find best suitable location for the construction of a specific building, based on Augmented Reality (AR) technology and benefiting from the data provided by the Geographic Information System (GIS) and trying to answer important questions: Are Augmented Reality (AR) technology an appropriate methodology to correctly find suitable location for newly constructed buildings? Will it really enhance the architect's experience and improve his performance? It appears that the use of digital technology in any applied field improves the accuracy and task completion time of the result, is this also true for the problem under discussion? Accordingly, setting up clear and unified standard measuring criteria agreed upon all architect and urban planners as these measures will have tangible values, , thus enriching the experience of both the client and the architect.
This paper seeks to explore the relationship between habitable area ratios and other component areas ratios, such as the structure area, the service area, the circulation area, and the open space area, in the context of Iraqi single-family houses. Therefore, this study aims to answer two key questions: Is the habitable area ratio among other ratios compatible with Iraqi housing standards? And does it affect the performance of the units? To this end, the paper adopted a methodology for calculating each area ratio in several newly established complexes in Sulaimaniya City and their relationship to the size of different plot areas for assessing the habitability and efficiency of different house plot areas.
The research attempts to reach the semantic depth of this term and discusses the problems it raises in order to judge its credibility in expressing the cultural heritage of the peoples that condemned Islamic Religion and its potential to create a common understanding among its users so that it does not fall into the trap of narrow regionalism and limited ideology and gives a comprehensive description of its implications.
Adopting an inductive methodology, the research initially asked several questions related to the term (Islamic Architecture) and to answer, it discussed the problems raised by that term, which relate to the form, content, and identity, in order to reach the accurate significance of the use of the term and thus determine its efficiency in the overall meaning description.
With respect to the question of “to what extend the designers of the residential projects took the urban housing standards of the ministry of construction of Iraq into consideration “this study is to focus on the criteria of open spaces ratio in three existing urban housing projects in Sulaimany city in Iraq by taking into account the hypothesis which state that there is a significant ignorance of such criteria in the existing and upcoming urban residential projects.
The study adopts a methodology of direct comparison between the existing open areas ratio and the one required by the above mentioned planning and design criteria. The results show the residential projects have low level of implementation of the regulation, with comparatively small differences between the projects added to that is the fact that the inhabitants had low level of satisfaction.