Project
Re-Identifying Cairo's Center
Year: 2021
Category: Landscape & Urbanism
Skills: 2D drawing, Cad, Rhino, 3D modelling, AutoCAD, Photoshop, Illustrator
The city of Cairo in Egypt is one of the biggest and oldest cities in the world with its foundation starting with the Islamic old city in 641–642 AD. Also it is counted as one of the richest in its culture as it has gone through many phases and expansions with varying identities clashing dating back to the Islamic age reaching to the colonial French and British era with everything else in between. Cairo now has expanded organically around its center by a great extent making it one of the biggest megacities in the world and one of the most populated with a population surpassing 21 million citizens. This chosen center of the city is Tahrir's square (Victory square). It is one of the main points that witnessed many revolutions and shifts of the city. But now the city has simply become too big, dense and diverse in its identity that it is in desperate need for a new center that fits its scale. This project proposes a new heart of the city in the Old Islamic Cairo and ways to revitalize the old city. This project was completed by the architecture students May Sherif and Mohamed Omar supervised by Prof. Rita Pinto De Fritas part of the design studio course in the German University in Cairo. This project has also won the 2nd place "The Luiz Conceição Architecture award" organized by ISMAT in Portugal in 2022 and published and exhibited in "Bayt Yakan" a cultural center in Islamic Cairo aiming to regenerate and revitalize the old city.
Project Introduction
“....The heart of the city should be an expression of the collective mentality, culture, and spirit of the community, which humanizes, shapes and gives meaning to the city itself. ” This is the quote the pushed us to choose a center that better captures the true spirit of the city of Cairo and fits its new scale.
The Proposed New Center and Its Larger Context
The first phase of the project focuses on the XL scale and the larger context of the old city and its connectivity to it. This led to the analysis of the chosen network of streets in the old city and the proposal of the main 4 decisions and interventions in the L scale that would allow the revitalization of the cultural identity, accessibility and well-being in the new center.
The Masterplan
The next phase in the project was to analysis this strategically chosen fragment of the center which according to the analysis is the most important one and its activation will lead to the activation of the entire new heart of the city. In the M scale the fragment's existing situation was analyzed and then a masterplan was created proposing the main architectural interventions that will lead to the activation of the fragment.
Axonometric Masterplan
This Isometric drawing shows the masterplan after completion with the main architectural interventions highlighted with two of them being the chosen architectural projects to be designed in the next phase which are Al Qarabiyah cultural center and Connected courtyards houses
Key Architectural Projects
The final phase which is in the S scale focuses on the architectural and the human scale. With the cultural center focusing on the cultural identity aspect of the city and the creation of courtyard houses focusing on the residential aspect of the city.
Mohamed Omar
More by Mohamed Omar
View profile
Arch Hive