Zugl.: Hohenheim, Univ., Diss., 2006

Although only a few of us have been to the desert, we all have a clear and chromatic image of it. Our mental representation of these landscapes has been formed throughout the years through photographic media and film. A few well known visual and literary works that contributed to the myth of the desert include: Le Petit Prince (1943), Antoine de Saint-Exupéry The Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1926), T.E Lawrence Lawrence of Arabia (1962), David Lean Theeb (2014), Naji Abu Nowar This fascination led to an increase in demand for travel to these mythological places. Such an increase raises particular challenges for the desert and its inhabitants that include a demand for services and infrastructure and an appetite to learn more about the site. The phenomenon creates new issues that require creative solutions and interventions. How can architecture provide spaces as a solution to mitigate these issues? The thesis examines the question in the context of the Wadi Rum Protected Area (WRPA), a UNESCO world heritage site that is located in the Arabian Desert region. It proposes a cultural center that reflects the ecological and cultural significance of the site. The architecture of the building converges elements from the desert with elements from local bedouin culture. The building aims to create spaces for educational opportunities to the bedouin and the tourist in order to enhance the visitor's experiences and enrich the local's knowledge. / Master of Architecture / This thesis examines the issues that are associated with an increase in tourism in the Wadi Rum Protected Area (WRPA), a UNESCO World Heritage site that is located in the Arabian Desert Region. The thesis attempts to provide a solution through architecture and urban planning strategies that include the proposition of educational spaces for the tourist and the local. These architectural spaces have the ability to add value to the tourist's experience and enrich the local community in the future.

<p>There are two central themes to this thesis. Firstly, it shows how the adoption of people-centered and greening development paradigms, designed to improve mainstream development problems of the late 20^th century, continue to produce unsatisfactory and unsustainable results for intended beneficiaries in the 21^st century. Secondly, it shows how the “intended beneficiaries” use their experiences and their knowledge of the development processes to analyze, explain and voice why it has not worked for them. Their <em>local knowledge</em> illustrates how beneficiaries continue to remain on the “outside” or peripheral to development instead of being equal partners as the people-centered discourse claims.</p> <p>This thesis reviews the development of the Wadi Rum Protected Area (WRPA) in southern Jordan. This development fostered both conservation and tourism projects to assist members of the seven local Bedouin communities or clans whose historical rangelands constitute the protected area. Four significant development decisions and projects are examined to better understand how this development functioned. Many Bedouin commentaries and those of some non-Bedouin involved in the projects provide social, economic and environmental assessments of the protected area's progress over a ten year continuum. What emerges is a nuanced awareness of how the WRPA has not achieved its stated goals or the benefits promised to the Bedouin, but did support other developers', lenders' and government objectives. Bedouin knowledge also highlights how “development” has contributed to a near dissolution of their control over what had been their tourism industry, how it has usurped their control of their lands and villages, how the project has created greater divisiveness between and within the clans and how it has come to support the growth of tourism over environmental protection. In general, the development of the Wadi Rum Protected Area has not achieved its people-centered and green goals.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)