Urban design redux: Redefining a professional practice of specialization

Implicitly, Arabic literatures address the notions of ‘Umran’ and urban design. In Egypt, there are two terms used to describe the art of cities. This paper aims to disengage and delineate the terminologies in the field of building human settlements. The research starts with a thoroughly inductive analysis of the concept of urban design theories and discourse. The exploratory-descriptive approach follows some development projects that use urban design for several types of settlements neither a city nor town. Finally, the paper proves that ‘Umran Design’ is not opposite to ‘urban design’. This gets a recommendation to make urban design works in cities/town as well as provides experts who are aware of the national context with opportunities to follow the design process other types of human settlements. The disengagement can give a room in applicable research projects for the Arabic expression to work on communities hold a variety of types.