Growing with | Changing with

The "LANDSCAPE WORKSHOP "is an initiative of the Department of Enterprise LANDSCAPE AND TOURISM School of Architecture at the University of Manchester and a group of professionals and teachers from various schools of architecture in Europe and North Africa, which through "LANDSCAPE WORKSHOP" educational and professional exchange experiences on the project's ability to intervene in the landscape of our cities and territories (http://www.tallerdepaisaje.com/).

I had the chance to participate in the 2010 this edition with a team from Cairo university with our professor Dr. Dalila el Kerdani.
"Lem3a participation and working philosophy was evident in the final outcome of the group's proposal, producing a very rich mixture of traditional and digital approaches where students found a new inspiration methodology. The collaboration of all teachers (Bethlehem, Nuria, Carlos and Francisco) was crucial in finding the common point between the two procedures. The work done by the students was fantastic and their ability to collaborate as a team despite the language difficulty was an example to all" Rafael Urquiza said .

voronoi in nature

The objective is to solve the enormous plated for proposed intervention around " the Camino de San Rafael" , which was based on the integration of the complexity of the social fabric over time in a controlled and structured growth of the place. For this reason, we generated a self-organizing system that allowed parametric complexity of the site to absorb and adapt to the different cells that adapt to the social proposal.

The system bases its complexity ordered Voronoi diagram, generated by a new formal and functional landscape diversity can connect the urban and social reality on all scales .

The system

Variety of cells to adapt to the social complexity

From the family unit to a community

Cellular self-organization parametric density function.

New digital territory in San Rafael

The applications are organized by layers.

We are leafing team! From left to right and from top to bottom: Rachel, Feifei, Carlos, Paco, Rafa, Alberto, Fran, Zaira, Ahmed, Aitor, Atene, Bethlehem and Nuria.

Download the complete presentation.

The Dynamic city

There have been attempts to discover the dynamic and the flexible idea of the city.
Does this change the way we experience space and what we need from our city? what does it mean to creat those " Flexible boundaries".
There is no master in the masterplan anymore . sometimes urban spaces are up for grabes. Their use changes over time, their intended use is trumped by the crowd, by shifting economies, by unforseen events.

As our own creative minds fuel our economies, as that inner world mentions trumps the communal, civic one, we can become the definers of the space. Our cities become more fluid, less rigid, and cry out for new systems to help us navigate them . So what does that mean for urban planning? We often hear about how uncertain economic times require us to be nimble and reactive. How do our cities manage to balance long-range planning with that necessary nimbleness. (copied)

Exploring the Qualities

When we were at the third year of our study of architecture in the faculty of engineering at Cairo university , we were lucky  that some students of us had the chance to take a study course about the aesthetics of architecture with Dr.Nabeel el Hady and Dr.Raghad Mofeed.

The course was organised to comprise two main phases; exploration and manifestation.while the first was concerned with contemplation and observation to deduce the underlying qualities of the investigated element, the second focused on embodying and manifesting these qualities through modeling.

"The selected cases for investigation in 2009 were the courtyards of (1) Zainab khatoun House (6)wekalet el Ghoury (8) Khan el Zaraksha " *

First Phase: Our tools in this phase were a sketch book and a camera . "Sketching is not only a kind of expression but rather a process of thinking and reflecting."*
The continues process of visiting the sites, making sketches, writing comments and feelings, discussion and brain storming as well as lectures resulted in some general observations or charecteristics of what can be seen as aspects of beauty in the various subjects we investigated.

Examples of layering details, photographed by Ahmed el Hozayen.

Examples of the shadow shapes on the facades, photographed by Ahmed elhozayen.

Examples of the mysery, photographed by Ahmed el Hozayen.

Second phase: We were asked to build a 1:10 or 1:20 model of the courtyards' facades to embody the observed qualities of the courtyards.Through this phase , we were given the chance to think, imagine, experience, and appreciate the challenges and ideas that exist in these specific conditions of buildings of quality.

Each group had the mission to creat a model of one facade, for me, I had a great chance to collaborate with two awesome friends , Ahmed Fathy and Samir Ayiad, who helped me a lot to understand many things.

* Elhady, Nabeel and Mofeed, Raghad. "An Approach to Teaching Aesthetics: Linking Mental and Manual Skills,"