UNESCO-UIA & MIDO Student Design Prize for Responsible Architecture

What is Responsible Architecture?

My thesis project was many things, but one thing is for sure is that it was a manifestation of a lifelong endeavor of always finding myself in the in—between. I found myself there by asking the question of how does one design responsibly in the metropolis of Cairo? A city in which one cannot overlook the surveillance in our urban, the growing inequality in our city, the shrinkage of public space, the decentralization of the center that is Cairo, and the propagation of class divisions, where the "community" is constantly perceived as this "other."

Thus, to design responsibly means to confront what the role of the architect is in such a complex urban landscape. I learned that to tackle such a topic requires a multidisciplinary approach, and this approach is embedded in my process of exploring the in-between of anthropology and architecture. I started my journey in the informal sector of Mansheyat Nasser. There is a community of people in this area called "Zabaleen" who are garbage collectors that recycle most of the garbage they collect from Cairo. And I had to ask: Why was there such an othering of the Zabaleen community of Mansheyat Nasser? Why was any form of intervention based on hegemonic discourses such as “development” and "empowerment," which pertain to corrupt social constructs?

I then realized that the concept and process of the project was to unleash and understand the fluidity of the complex actor network of the Zabaleen community in Mansheyat Nasser, to design for the area, by conducting a multi-disciplinary architectural and anthropological process. My process was a vigorous one that involved ethnographic field work, paint, listening, and drawing. In this process, I attempted to find truth in placemaking, which is not independent of the process, but part of it. In this attempt, | read what one would call coincidences as poetry of the infinite network which we are all a part of. Understanding is a messy process, and I attempted to understand in my own peculiar way, by making sense of the mess by creating an even bigger mess.

However, after spending so much time on site and exploring the site with the children, it then became evident that the role of the architect here is not to dictate with a design proposal, but to collaborate with the community and grow with them. The responsible role of the architect here is to learn from the community, and to collaborate with the community that builds for themselves. This is an area based on resistance, improvisation and becoming. Hence, the final project submitted was an incomplete architecture. This incomplete architecture is one that accommodates to their non-static centers of their infinite lifeworlds, and it fosters the making and becoming, which is only completed by them.