Cite this article
Derriche, Z., Kacemi, M., Seddiki, M. (2025) ‘Multi-criteria evaluation applied to a pilot sustainable neighbourhood project in Algeria: The El Ryad neighbourhood concerning sustainability indicators’, Architecture Papers of the Faculty of Architecture and Design STU, 30(1), pp. 5-14. https://www.doi.org/10.2478/alfa-2025-0002
SUMMARY
Climate change and its effects now seem to be well established and linked to human activity, and this is reflected in the fact that this major issue is being placed on the world’s political agendas. Cities make a significant contribution to climate change, accounting for almost three-quarters of total emissions, but they are also home to innovative and sustainable practices. In the face of this global crisis, sustainable urban development became an essential means to the application of sustainability in the urban areas. It is one of the major challenges faced in urban planning and development policies. To guide these policies in their decisions, evaluation remains a crucial step in implementing sustainability actions. A series of indicators are available in the form of methods and decision-support software.
In Algeria, a new political will is emerging to integrate the notion of sustainability into urban planning, in order to achieve responsible management of existing urban spaces, enhance them, and develop a strategy for rewriting the urban framework according to its real potential to accommodate growth. With this in mind, the transfer of experience from northern countries needs to be framed and “contextualised” so that it is as relevant as possible, to meet sustainability needs that must first be prioritised. A reflection is required on the adaptation of an evaluation method to a South-Mediterranean context that differs from the one in which the method was created.
The aim of this research work is to create a local evaluation grid that allows us to visualise the object in its true value, adapted to the context. The influencing factors of the various indicators have been the subject of much debate in recent years, attracting particular attention of researchers. For this reason, we have turned our attention to a composite tool that aims to superimpose the data used by two evaluation systems at the same time, namely the indicators of the University of Quebec’s eco-counselling charter grid and those of the INDI (INDicators Impact) software of the ISDIS system developed by the SUDEN Association.
The operation of repositioning objectives according to the priority attributed to them can be expressed through the “objective weighting” box present on this grid, which allows us to give a “coefficient” to each objective according to its order of priority in the context studied. In this way, we will be able to develop an analysis of the district using “weighted indicators”, which we will then try to superimpose on the graph of the INDI model of the HQE2R approach. In this way, we expect to obtain a model adapted to a very specific context. The Algerian and Oranese context, in particular, has so far lacked this kind of assessment tool, which is nonetheless necessary to support public policies and other players in the decision-making process, in integrating sustainable development as an approach, particularly in urban projects.
By applying this method, we have the opportunity to see the assessment results for the El Ryad district with the advantage of the clear legibility offered by the INDI tool of the ISDIS method. The segmentation of objectives into 18 targets enables us to see the gaps numerically. The functional mix target narrows the graph, while health and safety was one of the major objectives of the project’s promotor from the outset, who wanted to create a neighbourhood where life was “good”. Particular attention was paid to the project’s landscape quality. A “selective” socio-financial mix was adopted, with the aim of ensuring the group’s adherence to the “sustainable neighbourhood” concept as a national pilot project.
As far as the rationalisation of renewable energies is concerned, the results of the survey show that the objective has not really been achieved, and a number of ideas were suggested to ensure more sustainable consumption. In addition, the El Ryad project is performing well in terms of sharing common spaces, as well as local governance, thanks to the establishment of the management company named GIRYAD, which works in collaboration with the neighbourhood committee. The group’s adherence to the concept is judged to be quite effective. Even if the decision-making process has not begun since the project’s inception.
On the whole, targets related to the environmental aspect of the area under study are those that are most “damaged” in favour of economic and social aspects. This could be explained by a lack of resources dedicated to this aspect, the high cost of the technological devices that need to be put in place to achieve the objective, or an order of priorities established by local governance. In fact, other needs, particularly those relating to the economic and social aspects of sustainable development, are considered a “priority” in a developing country.
Through the experience of an evaluation trial in the El Ryad district, the article first reflects the need for a debate on the importance of evaluation in a “sustainable” urban planning approach; then on the relevance of evaluation by sustainability indicators in this sustainable urban planning. Next, the study attempts to interpret the question of preparing this this evaluation that would use sustainability indicators in relation to a given spatio-temporal context. Adapting an assessment tool such as the INDI model provides not only a political-administrative basis, but also a technical basis for assessing the sustainability of projects through the legibility of the criteria offered by a pictorial assessment system.