September 01, 2014
I was involved in the SchoolYard for All as the moderator and the organizer of the design workshops.
A SCHOOLYARD FOR ALL – COEXISTENCE THROUGH DESIGN is a participatory design and construct project aiming to benefit the local Syrian and Egyptian community in Gamasa, Egypt as a whole and specifically the users of Gamasa Experimental School. The workshop comprises a series of participatory workshops with the Syrian and Egyptian students of the school as design partners to upgrade Gamasa Schoolyard. The participatory workshops are held with the aim of building and strengthening community ties between students, help in the integration of Syrian students, induce a sense of ownership among the school users and provoke a strong sense of belonging to the school while stimulating their sense of creativity. Physical outputs of the project should include redesign and beautification of the schoolyard and recreational spaces to avoid conflicts between students, increasing vegetation and outdoor shading areas and finally achieving a child proof environment.
Geneina Project
May 01, 2015
I've participated in the design and implementation of the ‘Geneina’ which is the new open space located in Masaken Othman area (6th of October City), providing a recreational communal node that serves the children and women residing in the area. The area allows children, of all ages and nationalities, to actively play. The space is created as an interactive atmosphere with a diversity of playing elements that are designed and based on participatory design workshops conducted with the area’s children and adults. It is a place for the children that they can call their own, where they can play freely and enjoy the simplest rights of their childhood. Geneina also targets to provide a platform for mothers -and women in general- to interact openly and safely. Creating such a safe outdoor, serving as a functional public open space, is highly needed as expressed by the residents of Masaken Othman; to benefit the entire community and to increase the level of integration and mutual acceptance between the local residents and the refugee community in the area.
Wohnungsfrage Academy The Housing System
October 22, 2015
The Academy was part of the multidisciplinary project Wohnungsfrage by HKW which investigated the tension-ridden relationships between architecture, housing, and social reality. In an exhibition of experimental living formats, a series of publications, a discursive public program and an international Academy the project encouraged the discourse on communal and self-determined housing. Curated by Jesko Fezer, Nikolaus Hirsch, Wilfried Kuehn, and Hila Peleg, Wohnungsfrage initiated collaborations between international and local actors in architecture, urban planning, politics, art, science, and activism.
Accompanying the Wohnungsfrage project, the international Academy was directed by Reinhold Martin (Buell Center, Columbia University) in collaboration with Nikolaus Hirsch. At the center of the practical and theoretical approach of the Academy was the investigation of the housing system and its infrastructures. In collaboration with 17 tutors from various fields, the Academy provided the context for cross-disciplinary exchange and in-depth investigation of this system. The program offered its 65 participants, which I was lucky to be among them, the opportunity to investigate new strategies for interdisciplinary research and potential collaborations in the field of housing.
E-scape. Transitional settlement
May 2015
Bar Elias, Lebanon
Oorganized by Department of Landscape Design and Ecosystem Management (LDEM) at AUB in collaboration with the International Federation of Landscape Architecture (IFLA).
I was invited to 8 days intensive operative workshop, among a team of students, researchers, professors to work with local communities implementing on site sustainable problem-solving projects at the larger and smaller scale. Environmental and Cultural were two main topics we wanted to stress on trying to propose punctual but effective design intervention.
A SCHOOLYARD FOR ALL – COEXISTENCE THROUGH DESIGN is a participatory design and construct project aiming to benefit the local Syrian and Egyptian community in Gamasa, Egypt as a whole and specifically the users of Gamasa Experimental School. The workshop comprises a series of participatory workshops with the Syrian and Egyptian students of the school as design partners to upgrade Gamasa Schoolyard. The participatory workshops are held with the aim of building and strengthening community ties between students, help in the integration of Syrian students, induce a sense of ownership among the school users and provoke a strong sense of belonging to the school while stimulating their sense of creativity. Physical outputs of the project should include redesign and beautification of the schoolyard and recreational spaces to avoid conflicts between students, increasing vegetation and outdoor shading areas and finally achieving a child proof environment.
Geneina Project
May 01, 2015
I've participated in the design and implementation of the ‘Geneina’ which is the new open space located in Masaken Othman area (6th of October City), providing a recreational communal node that serves the children and women residing in the area. The area allows children, of all ages and nationalities, to actively play. The space is created as an interactive atmosphere with a diversity of playing elements that are designed and based on participatory design workshops conducted with the area’s children and adults. It is a place for the children that they can call their own, where they can play freely and enjoy the simplest rights of their childhood. Geneina also targets to provide a platform for mothers -and women in general- to interact openly and safely. Creating such a safe outdoor, serving as a functional public open space, is highly needed as expressed by the residents of Masaken Othman; to benefit the entire community and to increase the level of integration and mutual acceptance between the local residents and the refugee community in the area.
Wohnungsfrage Academy The Housing System
October 22, 2015
The Academy was part of the multidisciplinary project Wohnungsfrage by HKW which investigated the tension-ridden relationships between architecture, housing, and social reality. In an exhibition of experimental living formats, a series of publications, a discursive public program and an international Academy the project encouraged the discourse on communal and self-determined housing. Curated by Jesko Fezer, Nikolaus Hirsch, Wilfried Kuehn, and Hila Peleg, Wohnungsfrage initiated collaborations between international and local actors in architecture, urban planning, politics, art, science, and activism.
Accompanying the Wohnungsfrage project, the international Academy was directed by Reinhold Martin (Buell Center, Columbia University) in collaboration with Nikolaus Hirsch. At the center of the practical and theoretical approach of the Academy was the investigation of the housing system and its infrastructures. In collaboration with 17 tutors from various fields, the Academy provided the context for cross-disciplinary exchange and in-depth investigation of this system. The program offered its 65 participants, which I was lucky to be among them, the opportunity to investigate new strategies for interdisciplinary research and potential collaborations in the field of housing.
E-scape. Transitional settlement
May 2015
Bar Elias, Lebanon
Oorganized by Department of Landscape Design and Ecosystem Management (LDEM) at AUB in collaboration with the International Federation of Landscape Architecture (IFLA).
I was invited to 8 days intensive operative workshop, among a team of students, researchers, professors to work with local communities implementing on site sustainable problem-solving projects at the larger and smaller scale. Environmental and Cultural were two main topics we wanted to stress on trying to propose punctual but effective design intervention.