Egyptian Graduation Project Competition 3.0

This project envisions a seasonal, biodegradable reed facility on Lake Nasser that restores Aswan’s lost ecological and cultural balance after the High Dam’s construction. Blending architecture, craft, and ecology, it transforms polluted sediment into clean water and reed-based materials through a dynamic system of floating farms, vertical drying rails, and a Nubian cultural craft center. Designed from local palm wood, acacia, and biodegradable composites, the structure adapts to changing water levels, filtering 20,000 liters per hectare daily while reviving traditional weaving and seasonal economies. Acting as both environmental infrastructure and cultural typology, it regenerates reed habitats, purifies the lake, and reactivates Nubian heritage—turning nature’s cycles into an engine of renewal.

"Dust Weaver is a graduation project that reimagines how architecture can turn environmental harm into opportunity. In Aswan, Egypt, granite quarries release more than 1.5 million tons of airborne dust annually, polluting the air, damaging farmland, and causing severe health risks. This pollution is directly linked to 10% of premature deaths in the region, making granite dust both a public health crisis and an environmental challenge. The project addresses this by designing a system of 40-meter-high timber cylinders, wrapped with electrostatically charged fabrics that passively capture airborne dust at optimal wind heights between 30 and 50 meters. Once the fabric becomes saturated, it cycles down into a cleaning chamber, where it is washed by water jets, dried with hot rollers, and returned for reuse. The collected dust is processed into glass fibers, which are then woven into cooling textiles—shawls, jalabiyas, and garments—that work by absorbing moisture from the body, thereby reducing skin temperature by 5–7°C and directly responding to Aswan’s harsh desert climate. At the heart of the project lies a fabric market, which becomes both a cultural and economic hub. Here, the cooling textiles are displayed and sold, offering artisans new opportunities and aligning production with Aswan’s tourism season to maximize community benefit. By rooting the design in weaving traditions, Dust Weaver also revives local craft, ensuring that the solution is not only technological but also cultural. Architecturally, the project combines stone structures for permanence with timber cylinders as iconic dust collectors. The result is a hybrid typology—part environmental infrastructure, part production facility, and part cultural market. Ultimately, Dust Weaver is a prototype for resilience. It demonstrates how design can filter air, improve health, revive heritage, and empower local economies. By capturing what once harmed Aswan and transforming it into value, the project shows how architecture can weave environment, culture, and community into one."

The Western Sahara has been a land of dispute for nearly fifty years, marked by continuous conflict and unresolved claims of ownership. One side, backed by greater economic and military power, has maintained control over the resource-rich territories, while the other has been left with barren lands, relying heavily on international aid for survival. This imbalance has deepened social and economic divides and has been physically reinforced by the construction of a separation wall, cutting through communities and intensifying the contrast between prosperity and deprivation. This project is set in a time after both sides finally reach a peace agreement, opening the possibility of reconciliation and shared growth. With the issues of separation and unequal division of land resources still pressing the aim of the project is to reconnect and redistribute the goods and products along the communities of each side of the wall, creating a network in which trade break the barrier that was once formed. This is achieved through a network of towers that dispatch drone units that carry out the products to a specific area and in turn takes back something different. This proposal reimagines how such landscapes ca be repaired not through invasive reconstruction but through systems of connection and exchange. The design introduces a network of drone towers positions beside settlements and cities, functioning as hubs for transportation and redistribution of goods. Since no existing infrastructure is capable of sustaining large-scale flows of goods across the territories. By transforming isolation into exchange, the project demonstrates how architecture can act as both technological and humanitarian tool, offering a vision where fractured regions become places of collaboration, balance and growth.

"HAJR — an Arabic word meaning “stone,” “abandonment,” “heritage of the earth,” and at times, “boundary” — forms the spiritual heart of a project rooted in Fustat, Old Cairo, where fragments of history still whisper beneath the dust. The Conservation Architecture Research Centre emerges as a living excavation — a sanctuary for material studies, VR and AR technological oriented heritage documentation, and restoration across the MENA region. From the earth, a pixelated terrain rises — an interplay of steel and 3D clay-printed structures, recalling the ruins scattered across the site. Its bridges and courtyards weave together scholars, craftsmen, scientists, engineers and visitors in a continuous dialogue between decay and renewal. Listening to its context, Hajr breathes through natural ventilation, shaded voids, and foundations that adapt to shifting underground waters. More than a building, it is an act of remembrance — an architecture that remembers, heals, and reawakens the stories TIME ONCE TRIED TO BURY ."

"Aswan, Egypt’s southernmost city, endures some of the country’s highest temperatures, often surpassing 45°C in summer. This extreme heat challenges daily life, public health, energy use, and sustainable development. Intense solar radiation, prolonged heatwaves, and limited natural shading demand innovative solutions that provide passive cooling while reflecting the region’s cultural heritage. Renowned for its stone carving and granite sculpting, Aswan has supplied material for Egypt’s most iconic monuments for millennia. This legacy lives on through the Aswan International Sculpture Symposium (AISS), founded in 1996, which brings global artists to work with Aswan’s granite and exchange ideas. Yet, the tradition faces declining local participation, reduced engagement, and limited infrastructure for year-round activity. The Living Symposium reimagines this event not only as an artistic gathering but as an architectural and cultural intervention—creating a climate-regulating landmark that revives and celebrates Aswan’s sculpting heritage. Embedded in the heart of West Suhail—a local Nubian village—is a community-oriented sculpting symposium that serves a dual purpose: it functions both as a sculpting symposium with indoor and outdoor exhibition spaces and hands-on sculpting workshops, and a public gathering space that fosters community engagement while regulating the microclimate temperatures by up to -10°C. The project also includes market areas that support the local Nubian community by improving their standard of living. At the core of the design is a passive cooling system utilizing dual thermal exchange cylinders, which not only serve as sculptural displays but also function as microclimate-regulating elements. One cylinder acts as a hot air exhaust, while the other operates as a cooling cylinder, both employing the principles of stack effect and negative pressure to regulate temperatures. Beyond the cylinders, the system integrates with contextual path walls that extend from the surrounding village, guiding visitors through the project while channeling airflow and expelling warm underground and ambient air. Courtyards also play a crucial role in this passive strategy, creating zones of negative pressure that draw in air through the cooling cylinders—contributing significantly to the overall thermal comfort of the space."