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The European Face of Alexandria

Part 1 Project 2023
Riham Bahram
Arab Academy for Science, Technology & Maritime Transport - Alexandria Campus | Egypt
Alexandria, Egypt is a city that holds within its architecture a unique European spirit with a cosmopolitan community of European Mediterranean migrants from 1830 to 1930. Such an existence left a noticeable imprint on the image of the old city.

Residential buildings in El-Manshiyya and Bahari neighborhoods were the most prominent in style. However, neglecting restoration of abandoned buildings and allowing inappropriate interventions are destroying the European face of Alexandria.

One sample of these buildings was chosen to propose a typical solution for many similar ones due to its abandoned and deteriorating state, threatening the neighborhood with either a fall or a disease - as the ruins are left to become a waste dump.

The proposal applies different techniques for solving the complications of completing a half-building facade: Take-up the pre-existing with abstraction, creating a modern contrasting link between the existing and the addition, and applying Facadism to the existing.

The structure solves the issue of maximizing daylight in such narrow/shaded streets while still preserving the privacy of the surrounding residential context.

The project behind this face is a Performing Arts Center; the most vital function for a former place of ruins, an important street, and a historical face of Alexandria.


Tutor(s)

2023
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