UNDERGRADUATE ARCHITECTURE PORTFOLIO

I am an egyptian architecture student, who studied 8 semesters at the German Univesrity in Cairo, completed my Bachelor project and then spent a year working in offices around Germany. The architectural Scene that I have grown up and studied in has been a very spe-cial backdrop underlaying my academic career. Cairo is a rapidly developing metropolis. It has a constantly shifting political and urban land-scape, and a fascinating phenomena of informal-ity springing around a malfunctioning “formal”. Hence, the vitality of architects in society has taken new prespectives for me; with the possi-bility of learning from, and providing expertise to and mediating between, self-made creative survival solutions and profit hungry top down regulations. In the light of the pivotal role I could play in my community and as my passion for architecture itself as a science and an art grew, for the long nights of gradual design develop-ment, for the moment the right idea clicks, the beautiful simplicity in graphical representation, the impression of a crowd in a presentation, I pulled through my studies maintaining the 3rd

place in the cumulative ranking of my batch. With the belief in unbreakable driven committ-ment rowing has taught me, and the wonders of cultural exchange that travelling opened my eyes to, and with my certainty that I am still in thirst of furthering my architectural education, my eyes are unwaveringly set on undergoing yet another sensational experience and finally take my masters in one of the top architectural univesrities in the world. In the following pag-es of this portofolio, I am to leave you not only with a sample of my work, but rather attmept to use it as a story-telling tool, split into three broad sections, to show the development, of what in my eyes is, my journey with architecture.

Stage DesignOpera Aida: A reinterpretation

Institute for Cimatic Design and Thermal Comfort

GUC Knowlege Center

SeattlePublic Library:Building Analysis Maspero:

Urban Upgrade framework

Learn MovePlayGround

Modelling 2.0

FreehandSketching

Refugee Housing: Idea Presentation

Bauwelt: Cairo issue

Allmann Sattler Wappner Architekten

Maspero Parallel Project

Cairene Vibe

Wechsel Raum

A STORY..

With early

architectural/variedexplorations..

.. and a leapof Maturity

Then a shift to

Urban Scale

To astrike ofPassion..

And branching out in parallel

Stage DesignOpera Aida: A reinterpretation

Institute for Cimatic Design and Thermal Comfort

GUC Knowlege Center

SeattlePublic Library:Building Analysis Maspero:

Urban Upgrade framework

Learn MovePlayGround

Modelling 2.0

FreehandSketching

Refugee Housing: Idea Presentation

Bauwelt: Cairo issue

Allmann Sattler Wappner Architekten

Maspero Parallel Project

Cairene Vibe

Wechsel Raum

A STORY..

With early

architectural/variedexplorations..

.. and a leapof Maturity

Then a shift to

Urban Scale

To astrike ofPassion..

And branching out in parallel

A “Habitat” for hot climatic conditions experimenting with form finding. Fo-cus on innovation in low-tech solu-tions for sustainable thermal comfort.

A stage design of the famous opera Aida. Process based on the literary understand-ing of the pera’s text and its reinterprea-tion in the modern day Egyptian context.

A new library in the center of the Ger-man University in Cairo campus. Ra-dial geometry, flying platforms and an interesting facade highlight the project.

A purely analytical exercise analyz-ing OMA’s Seattle Public Library. A diagramatic represetnation and a model for the design are produced.

This design challenge was in a very special site in Cairo. The program (also to carried out in a site in Stuttgart and compared), was of a reseach space for 3-5 researchers/artist that would accomodate them staying over. Although Cairo as a city is con-sidered a mega-city and has so many overlapping layer of complexity, this particular part of the city isn’t the same. The area is called New Cairo. It is mostly characterized with oversized empty are-as, blocks of strictly resedintial villas and other isolated facilities. Hence, the site, inside a Uni-versity campus is not surrounded by much. This proposal attempts to create an introverted com-plex that would create a the interesting and ther-mally comfortabe atmosphere missing around.

Cairo SiteHot DesertContext

Inroversion | Climatic comfort

:

Form finding systematic efforts

Final Form

/ Low tech Low cost climaticsolutions

Although the same as in Cairo, the task of design in Stuttgart was rather summarized in the need to create a new landmark in the city. This need for a landmark comes from a closer look at the con-text of the intervention. The project stands on the top of the roof of the architectural building.The K1 building of the university is sitiuated in in the heart of the city; a very dynamic and active spot where so much is happening. Due to a hilly typography all around, the roof becomes of extremely significant due to its high visibility. The concept of the fifth facades is born and further investegated.

Parasitic Architecture: "Headpiece" anology

Dynamic Sculptural form

Stuttgart Site: Rooftop

Contrast of shell and

intersior spaces Constructiondevelopment

Functional Organization | Left to right: spatial constriction and private use toopenness and public use

A stage design project with a very strong literary grounding; the first exercise invloved reading an extract from “The poetics of Space - The Dialectics of Oustisde and Inside”, a text written by Gaston Bachelard. The aim was to digest the text and develop an understand-ing that allows one to relive its deep atmospheric abstraction, until gradually the freedom of connecting to the text and a hugely subjective interpretation bridges the gap between abstraction and materiality; a combination of text art and three dimensional physical mod-elling is used to represent the text. The same process is then reapplied to the text of the famous Aida Opera, written by Giuseppe Verdi. The Original text and storyline are reinterpret-ed in the light of the daily lives of the Egyptian society and the archtiectural scene in Cairo.

The original play of Aida revolves around love; it is the fuel that steers the ac-tions taking place. This modern depiction, “Wall of Surveillance”, disects this concept of love, which no more fits in its majestic romantic sense that Aida represents , and depicts it in a context fitting our modern day. Love suddenly represents the ties of friendship and family between the residents of an in-formal neighbourhood on one hand, and the thirst for money and power ev-ident in the coorporate sector and its competitive gurus, on the other hand. As with the original play, the storyline revolves around getting torn between these two kinds of modern love and how they ultimately induce our behavior.

Stemming out of the practical need of the uni-versity to build a new Central library building to replace the current temporary one, this pro-jects takes places in a very realistic context. In the center of the campus, the new “Knowledge Center” is placed at the most lively space that functions as a hub for hang outs, student activi-ties and intellectual interchange. And naturally, in the midst of this academic institution, the li-brary represents a metaphorical center but also a physical central point for reading, studying, presentation, discussion and intellectual stimu-lation. The form of this new landmark is purpos-fully shaped so that it intercepts the main circu-lation routes in the university, hence affecting the direct line of sight and the walking paths of students. Two focal circles form the basis of the form, out of which a radial grid emerges.

On the inside, a shift is made into a different atmosphere from the surrounding lively campus. Calm, scenery and inspiration take over the space. In the main hall of the Knowledge Center, there are three cylindracal cores. Their main pur-pose is penetration of light into the interior and the provision of small pocket-outdoor-spaces on differ-ent levels within themselves. The books shelves lie on the ground floor, whereas the reading spaces are on “flying plaforms” between these cores, accessed by stairs spiraling around the cores. The perfectly magical reading atmos-phere dawns on the library readers from the feeling of elevation in a bigger space with an open view to all the surrounding levels of the hall. In addition, the envelope of the building is a matrix of squares comprising three different materi-als transparencies: opaque, trans-lucent and completly transparent. While enough light penetrates to the reading spaces, the visiual disturbance of the entire campus is framed throught the transpar-ent facade sections only towards surrounding scenery. The second core of the building hosts a tran-quil, protected and introverted out-door working space, surrounded by study and presentation rooms.

In a very interesting and strictly analytical exercise, OMA’s Seattle Public Library is untangled and its functional stacking, interior zoning, circulation and facade system virtually relived. Simplified diagramat-ic representations are then reproduced showing the buildings basic elements and envelope. Following an understanding, the Library is finally modelled.

“Living Room”

BooksSpiral

ReadingRoom

A design studio addressing the mal-functioning of the Maspero district in the heart of Cairo. The project trans-forms the area into a mixed use district.

An issue of the German architectur-al magazine Bauwelt, focusing on the post-revolutionary architectural scene in cairo. I illustrated the maps of the city.

A 6 months internship in the interna-tionally operating architectural practice based in Munich, under Markus Allmann, Amandus Sattler and Ludwig Wappner.

An internship surving as the exact par-allel real onground project of the pre-vious design studio, facilitating the shift between academics and practice.

Bachelor Project which takes a holsitic approach in upgrading an informal settle-ment , addressing layers of social, histori-cal, economical and physical importance.

Crowning of the four year bench-mark of the GUC architectural depart-ment, the exhibition in the wechsel Raum featured my bachelor project.

The ‘Maspero Traingle’ is a district right in the heart of Cairo, by the Nile. The basis of this project is the existing extreme seperation, condradictions and malfunctioning between the different users of the area. A row of skyscrapers, including govermental institutions and high end hotels tower the waterfront, blocking the housing of the poor community behind them. The core of an ‘informal settlement’ is literally blocked by high fences and they have no direct access to the river. This project aims to solve the problem, in concept, by tranfering the housing core in the middle into a mixed use area, where the primary use is not only residential, but also commercial and cultural. The area starts to have dif-ferent users at different times of the day, making it more lively and safe. New standards of minmum appropriate housing applied and slightly higher income levels injected in. The area becomes a diverse city center attractive to the different levels of the community.

A set of guidlines were developed generally for the whole area and made into a booklet. One street was taken as a pilot project. The framework covers pivotal factors such as percentages of uses, maximum heights, allowable setbacks, roof use and facade transperancy. The aim of their application is the attainment of the mixed use atmosphere making the area more attractive to all stakeholders. Although, no specific archite-cural detailing was made, the general street atmosphere is presented.

The area starts to have different users at dif-ferent times of the day. Each with a differ-ent cycle of operation, between housewives, children going to school and playing on the streets, residents working in the work shops, running shopping errands, shop visitors walk-ing through the area, customers of the differ-ent restaurants coffeeshops, wokrers at the governmental instutions walking to and from work. Drived mainly by the diversity of uses, especially on the ground floor and its maintain-ance with transparent and intersting facades, makes the area automatically much more live-ly and attractive to walk through. That also means more shop owners have eyes on the street and it also becomes more interesting for the residents to watch. With more watchers, it also becomes a mucher safer environemnt. New standards of minmum appropriate hous-ing are then applied to upgrade the existing community housing or to build newer hous-es for them and, in addition, slightly higher income levels injected in. A second level of development is created through roof garden and private or pulic roof uses. The residents become more proud of their area, get a new sense of empowerment. The walkable warm at-mosphere of a city center is suddenly available.

An on-ground project run by MADD Platform, a local non-governmental intiative that works on par-ticipatory design in low-income areas, one of which is precisely where the previous Maspero design studio took place. It facilitated a shift from behind the safe academic walls to the parallel real project running on ground. I participated for three weeks as a full-time member of the project team, then maintained contact to MADD throughout my bachelor project; relying on their accurate survey-ing efforts and statistics and contributing diagramatic and graphical representations to their output.

The aim of this project is to experiment with possible approaches there are to upgradeBulaq Abu El Ela. It is a neighborhood that holds significance as a case study not onlybecause it represents a sample of the widely spreading but poorly understood andhandled “informality” within Cairo (hence, the title), but also because it is situated in aprime location within the city, carrying many overlapping layers of geographical, social,historical, and economic importance and contrasting interests. The project takes a some-what holistic approach covering a wide basis of research and understanding of the existing sitiuation, then suggesting solutions on the scale of area, and on the scale of single units.

Then, on the scale of asingle street, Atta Ahmed St., which is taken as a mod-el for the area, a solution is putforward which main-tains the existing ur-ban fabric by keeping key buildings that holdsignificant historical value, while trans-forming the area altogether into a mixed-use neigh-borhood as part of avibrant downtown; By re-densifying and by injecting new com-mercial units and newappropriate housing for the community, housing that attracts a slightly higher incomelevel into the area, and by adding new cultural nodes and public spaces.

NEW PUBLIC SPACES

CULTURAL NODES

COMMERCIAL UNITS

APROPRIATEHOUSING

Parallel to that, economic models for the entire area are suggested. These would use the existing potentials in the area to generate a source of in-come that would help make a trans-formation like this more feasible on the longer term possible. An example of the models is implyng the concept of coorporate social responsibility;the towering hotel situated justadjacent to Bulaq Abu El Ela,has an ariel view overlookingthe roofs of the area, and would pay for the installation of green roofs in ex-change for a beautiful back view from the overlooking rooms. Thus, both parties benefit in a sustainable model as such.

The project takes a final focus, on the smaller scale, on 3 archi-tectural pilot interventions of architectural design to assess howeach design can be appropriate for their diverse range of users and fit with-in its complex surroundings: a single-family house targeting the existingcommunity, a plot where 3 alternatives are made: trendy shared housing, an artistworkspace, a sewing company. The third is a higher level income apartment building.

After four years of the founding of the Architecture and Urban Design Program in the German University in Cairo, a critical and sentimental pause and look back was due. The sum of the work was exhibited in the Wechsel Raum, an architectural exhibition space in the heart of Stuttgart. The backdrop for most of the projects is Cairo, a rapidly developing metropolis of some 20 million inhabitants, where things are not always easy, but always thrilling. With a couple of students, I was re-sponsible of assiting in preping the exhibition space and setting up the layout and story line of the presentation boards. My Bachelor project, Cairene Vibe (the previous project) was featured as part of the exhibition.

The ‘Bauwelt’ is a periodic german architec-tural magazine that has one of the largest portions in job market of German architec-tural journals. This specific was featuring and focusing on the city of Cairo and the Cairene architectural scene and the phenomena of Informal housing and the Non-governmen-tal parrallel architectural practices that have been springing around the city to interact with the informal practice and put their exper-tise to practice. Special foucs is given to the developments in the post-revolution time. I was asked to illustrate the map of cairo showing a focus on some these instances of informality and their respective projects.

Ack nowledgement : In the four previous projects at ASW my role has been of an intern within a bigger team of architects. The size of the teams ranged between 1 to 3 architects with 1 or 2 interns. I was generally involved in team de-sign-research, discus-sions and design de-veloped and assigned different tasks from 2d drawings, 3d visiualiza-tion to model making.The previous pictures show only precisely my input in the projects. All the drawing, visuals and models have been done by myself in the context of bigger and more complex project.

A Comission centered around the idea of resetteling returning Syrian refugees. The task including basic urban clustering in ad-dition to attractively presenting the idea.

An internship at S.L. Rasch GmbH in the modelling department of the office. Giv-en the space to do a personal project, a freeform shell is designed and built.

Between personal portraits, moving sub-jects, buildings and landscaping, differ-ent samples of freehand drawing are ex-hibited to show the diversity in the skill.

A design-build workshop joining Egyptian and German students to improve court-yards of 2 public schools in Cairo, with students and teachers participation.

A workshop with the aim of improving courtyards of public primary schools in Cairo which took place in Autumn 2012. The project was organized by the German University in Cairo un-der the direction of Barbara Pampe and Vittoria Capresi. During the twleve intense days of the studio, eleven students from Germany, twenty-five from Egypt worked together with a team of professors and experts from different fields to realise through participation with the chil-dren and teachers a new playing landscape in the courtyards of two Public primary schools.

Given only a verbal description of a concept of the reset-tlemnt hosing pilot project next to the Syrian border, and simple unit design, my task was to develop urban clustering to present the idea attractively , for a donor’s presentation.

The project was to be carreid out in Compressed Mud blocks, a cheap, and socially / environmentally sustainable material. The basic stages of construction (concrete foundations, Mud blocks walls, and wood roofing) were shown to explain the sim-plicity of the process for a non-technical audience. Addition-al diagrams exhibited a cluster environmental advantages.

Construction Stages

UrbanClustering

An internship at S.L. Rasch GmbH in the modelling de-partment of the office. Given the space to do a personal project of preference, a free-form shell is designed digital-ly and then laser printed on PVC, assembled and sprayed.