In 1945 the Egyptian government decided to relocate Gourna, a village settled over the ancient tombs at Luxor, and gave the design to Hassan Fathy. Fathy rejected the standard solution of the day, reinforced-concrete blocks. His reasons were technical: concrete was expensive, required imported cement, absorbed heat by day and released it at night in the desert, and was not a material villagers could build with by their own labour.

Instead he studied a technique still alive in the Nubian villages south of Aswan: mud-brick vaults and domes laid in inclined courses without formwork. He brought those masons to New Gourna; thick mud-brick walls delayed the daytime heat, and hot air leaving through an opening at the top of a dome drew cool air in from the courtyard — a system that works without mechanical cooling. A full settlement was planned, with mosque, market, theatre and school.

The project did not go as intended. Most Gournis refused to move, since their livelihoods were tied to the ancient tombs; the budget was cut, construction halted, and some of the built houses were later demolished or replaced in concrete. Fathy told the story in *Architecture for the Poor* in 1969, and the book became the principal text for the idea of building with the user and out of the material of the place. Today the return to low-carbon local materials in the climate debate asks the same question again; what remains of New Gourna has been under conservation efforts with UNESCO support since the 2010s.