Jeddah Historic District Professional Work - Restoration
As an architect at SETS International, the multinational engineering and design consultancy based in KSA and Lebanon, I was part of the restoration unit for a year and three months. During this time, I was involved in the highprofile project of restoring the Jeddah Historic District, colloquially known as Al-Balad. Over the course of 15 months, I took part in preparing restoration reports for 12 different dilapidated heritage buildings in the district. This involved several steps, most of which I was a part of within the restoration team. Starting off by studying the history of each building, then surveying its laser scans to draw the plans and sections in their current form, to coming up with detailed restoration concepts and drawings that can be implemented onsite, as well as calculating BOQs for the restoration works. It was an intense period of producing work that was up to par with international standards and that can be implemented by the Saudi Ministry of Culture, the client. One by one, the buildings are undergoing restoration works as the project progresses. I have profiled two buildings here, Plot 1032 (Beit Al-Sibai), which is a grand heritage house that was run down but not completely collapsed, and Plot 2114 (Beit Banaja), which was partially collapsed with no previous indications of its original shape.
Jeddah Al-Balad, Photo from site visit. Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. 2024.
Plot 1032. Laser scan survey. Laser scan done by team. Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. 2023
2.5 Architectural Study
Observation and characteristics of the house - Adjacent building
The 1948 photo shows that the building on plot 1039 was raised over 1 floor only with columns and balustrade. It was used probably as a courtyard for Beit Al-Sibei or as an annex. In all cases, the study of this plot must include further investigation and analysis in order to identify the connection between these 2 buildings.
The inscription on the door indicates that the building on plot 1039 was built in 1937. However the connection between this building and Beit Al-Sibei shows that the latter is ulterieur.
Therfore, the ornaments and the inscriptions of Beit Al-Sibei may have been added after the completion of its construction.
The door is dated from the year 1356 Hijri / 1937 Gregorian
1039 West elevation
North and West elevations
Brick walls added at a later period
Different openings than the current ones
Plot 1032. Example of building analysis for Plot 1032 (Beit Al-Sibei). Individual work. Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. 2023
East Elevation proposed restoration with BOQ codes. Scale 1:150. Work as part of a team of 3. Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. 2023.
Observations and Architectural Analysis
Findings Analysis
Existing parapets showing that the corresponding spaces on the third floor were kharjas
third floor slab - kharja limits
The third floor and roof slab limits can be found as traces from the original structure as shown in the above diagram. Based on the image evidence (figures 3, 6, 7, and 8) we conclude that the third floor slab covered the same area as the second floor. The only traces that can be found for the roof slab are shown in figures 4 and 5. Based on that and the limits of the existing kharja on the third floor, we propose to only enclose the third floor according to the limits seen in the diagram.
of
of the
on 3D
South West Elevation
Fig. 7
Fig. 8
Fig. 5
Fig. 4
Fig. 6
Fig. 3
Fig. 2 Fig. 1
Trace of original third floor slab Trace
Proposed third floor slab - kharja limits
Proposed
The last flight of staircase 1 ends at the third floor, since there are no traces of a slab above it.
Original kharja
Original kharja
Plot 2114. Findings analysis
current state
building based
Laser scan model and site photos. The restoration proposal took shape after this analysis was done. Individual work. Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. 2023.
Supply and install waterproofing for roofs and terraces
Restitute the original woodwork (roshans, mashrabiya, handrails, doors, windows, ventilators...) by implementing the same details according to observation studies, using traditional techniques and materials and applying protection and chemical treatment for insects and termites.
Traces of original blue-green woodwork paint observed, further investigation and assessment to be conducted on site to determine the final woodwork paint scheme
Restitute the windows according to the observation and architectural analysis
Dismantle recent masonry blocking the window and restitute woodwork according to findings and analysis
Supply and install waterproofing for roofs and terraces
Reconstruct missing walls as detailed in the architectural analysis. Slab limits to be rebuilt as per the existing slab traces
The openings on the first and second floor to follow the traces of the original opening on the ground floor
Restitute the windows according to the observation and architectural analysis
Dismantle recent CMU and bricks blocking the window and restitute missing woodwork according to findings and analysis
North East View
Plot 2114. Diagram explaining restoration strategy for the very dilapitated building based on the previous analysis. Individual work. Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. 2023.
Ongoing project. I recently became part of the urban design team working on an eco-industrial park in the vicinity of the Red Sea on the Egyptian coast for a major local client. The project involves combining traffic, MEP, sustainability, and urban design to offer a holistic approach for industrialists looking to move their factories to the area, with the total land area of the project covering 1,980,000 m². I am mainly involved in plot design and land allocation as well as producing visuals.
I was involved in a number of projects ranging from concept design to execution drawings as an intern at BINAA in Istanbul, Turkey during my final year of architecture school. I collaborated with a small number of architects in the boutique firm, and coordinated work with several other interns who joined from different parts of the world. I was on the design team for a high-end mosque interior in the industrial zone of Sakarya, Turkey.
BINAA was commissioned to create the landscaping, finishing, and interiors of the mosque. It is located near the main office building of the industrial zone known as S2OSB Hendek, Sakarya, and is the only mosque available for workers in this remote area. I designed the Mihrab, walls, and ceiling of the main prayer hall, and created a concept design for the minaret, all of which were built as-is. As the only native-Arabic speaker on the team, I also designed the calligraphy, seen in the following photos. I created the full 3D model of the space used for renders in Rhino, as well as the preliminary technical plans. Later I was allowed to create visuals of a finished concept design for a multi-story city parking in Sakarya, and was involved in client meetings with the Sakarya Municipality.
S2OSB Hendek Mosque. Detail of the Minbar. Sakarya, Turkey. Completed, 2019-2020.
S2OSB Hendek Mosque. Modeled by Aya Nadera Zantout in Rhino. Renders made using Lumion as part of the Binaa Co. team - . Sakarya, Turkey.
S2OSB Hendek Mosque. Construction drawings. Sakarya, Turkey. Completed, 2019-2020.
Top: Exterior Isometric View
Middle: Ground floor plan - Drawn by Aya Nadera Zantout
Bottom: Section
Garden in the Sahara
Siwa Oasis Travel Studio
As part of a semester-long design studio, I traveled to the Siwa Oasis in the Sahara Desert in Egypt. I studied their mud-building techniques and was tasked with creating a garden for the main square in the historic center of the oasis within a team of 2 other students. The resulting design is an amalgamation of traditional Kharsheef salt and mud architecture, computational architecture using Grasshopper, and several homages to the late Egyptian architect Hasan Fathy. The design process was preceded by research on the subject of mud architecture in collaboration with Professor Salma Damluji. The design combines domed mud structures with tensile tents and calculated geometry in the triangular-shaped site, creating a double corridor of 3m each to form a smooth transition between the surrounding shops and the garden. The central garden thus becomes a closed garden, shaded by carefully designed tensile structures that fend off the heat of the sun, and by palm trees that provide natural cooling. The result is a contained oasis within the oasis that becomes a haven for the inhabitants of the surrounding areas to relax away from the scorching sun. My team and I purposefully chose to represent our design using a combination of hand drawings and computer-generated visuals to convey the intersection of the traditional and contemporary designs, complimenting that with models that we made out of clay and 3D printed materials. Watercolors are used opposite Revit-generated sunlight diagrams, and tensile structures are complemented with hand-drawn sketches. The works presented here are some of the visuals I created for the group project.
Study of Siwan urban fabric and routes surrounding the central garden. Siwa, Egypt.
Proposed Bicycle Route
Proposed Donkeycart Route
Tent-like structures
ProposedGardenIntervetnion
Steel Beams covered with rope
Native vegitation
Water source
TheGarden
Gabal Al Mawta Mountain of the Dead
West and East Shali
Temple of the Oracle Ammun
Existing Motor Roads
Rammed earth walls
Mudbrick and Kharsheef
Existing Urban Fabric
Plan, section, and tensile roof studies. Siwa Travel Studio, 2018.
Building a State of Justice Publicizing the Courthouse
For my final year thesis and project, I studied the issue of justice and how it relates to the architectural environment. After analyzing the cases of several cities around the world starting with Berlin, and how certain buildings in them transformed over time due to political and judicial incidents, I related this to Lebanon, studying governmental and “public” buildings here. My analysis led me to find that the combining thread that ties “public” buildings in Lebanon is how secure and un-public they really are. That is particularly the case for the courthouse. What should be a house of Justice, open to all to attend hearings, is secured through several layers of police protection. Cement barriers are complemented by barbed wire, and two security stations at the door. By deciding to reclaim the courthouse, I chose to intervene on it by turning it into an open hub with a plaza and pedestrian access that ties it to the street, inviting people inside. Such openness is unheard of since the Revolution of October 2019, when the city was further segmented and certain parts of it completely hidden away from the public. The new courthouse uses simple columns to extend the old, existing building outwards and stretches it out to the pedestrian access, making it a center that could be used to reclaim the idea of Justice by the only way the Lebanese have known for years: protests.
A Public Courthouse. View from the public walkway towards the courthouses. Rhino and Lumion Pro, Thesis II, 2019.
Map detailing the security barricades around the Palace of Justice area. Beirut, Lebanon, 2019.
A courthouse with a courtyard. Massing and ground floor plan. Beirut, Lebanon. 2019.
Longitudinal section passing through the project. Perspective from the courtyard at the courthouse entrance. Thesis II, 2019.
In Trance Reclaiming Spirituality
In Trance is an ongoing series initially started in 2017 then picked up again in 2021. It is an attempt at redefining spirituality and religiousity on my own terms through visual means. Growing up surrounded by religiousity and all of what it offers, I was unable to define my identity in clear terms. I did not want to be confined to one form of religiousity (nor secularism, athiesm, etc.) and found myself searching for ways to define this identity. In Trance 1 came out of an innate verocity that sought itself out of me. One day out of nowhere I started writing repentance over and over again. It was an outpouring of a feeling of self-disgust and the attempt to cleanse myself as I had always been told.
Trance 1
Repetition is an integral element of Sufi tradition. It is used to signify belonging, and to solidify ideals in one’s mind. Repetition is also a powerful method of teaching. By repeating ideas to the masses, a leader can manipulate minds by incessantly hammering them with repetitive notions akin to a state of trance. This piece is my reclamation of ideals that I grew up listening to on repeat; that one must repent in order to be forgiven. Thus I emblazon the question “Did you repent yet?” in bold red Arabic lettering over a long series of the word “repent” written over and over on a large sheet of paper. The kneeling women in the piece are asking the question, for which I answer “No”. The ongoing series is my attempt at reclaiming my spirituality through various visual means.
Pray On The Clean Carpet. Woven textile and brass. 2017. By burning the sacred prayer mat in the spots where a person in prayer touches the ground, I attempt to convey the idea that prayer is the death of the self. Another carpet is woven into the burned holes using golden thread to try and repair the line that connects the self on earth and the self in another realm.
Trance 4. Ink and gouache paint on sketch paper. 18 x 25 cm, 2022.
In Trance
Part One
As an expansion to my small scale work on repetition as means of prayer, I wanted to use repetition of repentance as a backdrop for labor-intensive work that translates into the need to shed desires and sins and cleanse the body in order to repent. Spending a whole day, with rarely any breaks, writing the word repentance on this 2.8x2.8m paper, I turned prayer into a visual form. The red connotates intensity, as the piece tries to mimic sufi thikr circles, where the prayer leaders intensify the sound and rythm of their prayer to reflect their spiritual soul reaching a higher state of being.
In Trance Part Two, a durational performance
A natural continuation of In Trance Part One, I overtook Takeover Space in Achrafieh, Beirut, on June 1 2024 for a full day. In this durational performance, I dissected the 2.8x2.8m piece of paper word by word, essentially sinning over and over again (about 1,500 times). While people spectated from the street, I then took the pieces of repentance and glued them back together, one by one, on the window pane, in an attempt to repent from every sin again. As the day went on, the window pane was covered and I was no longer visible from the street, drowned by the need to repent from each of my sins.
In Trance Book
I keep In Trance in my pocket. This A5 sketchbook is filled with pages of the 99 names of Allah in Islam. Each written in Arabic repetitively to fill a page. This is an ongoing piece.
The Red Box
Mixed Media - Installation
A commentary on grief and its evolutionary process within oneself and the spaces we occupy in a country constantly giving its citizens reasons to grieve, the work draws on Laure Ghorayeb’s Beirut Calls the Future Generations, Cain and Abel, or the Fratricidal War, 1975-1990 with its use of collage—in this case, video collage—to piece together fragments of the history of the artist’s family home in Beirut. Left to decay as some of its original inhabitants passed away in the last few years, the building that once buzzed with laughs and screams from every room now sits eerily silent, nary a sound but that of the sea it sits in front of. Using archival family photos collected over several years, and stills taken on 35mm film from the house in its current state, the artist engages her grandmother in a private conversation about the house and invites the viewer to listen in through The Red Box, a metaphor for the isolation and toxic nostalgia that the house currently exudes within the greater confines of a country in constant grief for its past. The work was selected as part of the Encounters 2023 collective show at Janine Rubeiz Gallery in Beirut after a juried competitiion in which 25 works were chosen from a pool of 115 participants. The video collage screened inside The Red Box can be seen through the QR code at the bottom-left of the page.
Screen grabs from The Red Box. Installation, 2023.
The Red Box at Janine Rubeiz Gallery. Beirut, Lebanon, 2023.
Fleeting Thresholds. Process image of engraving copper using the intaglio etching technique. 2022
Fleeting Thresholds Liminality of Space
A moment suspended in time, everlasting.
Attempting to visualize this notion, this print captures a moment when the driver passes another, possibly never to be seen again, and suspends it for all to see. Stippled dot by dot on copper over 5 weeks, I found myself being transported into a feeling of liminality as my needle poked into the wax for hours. A feeling of being in the ether. This print was commissioned as part of the collective show “Impressions from an Archive”. The exhibit was a collaboration between the Beirut Printmaking Studio and the Arab Image Foundation, where printmakers from the studio each created a print that dialogued with a photo of their choosing from the foundation’s archive. The collective was shown at the Liverpool Arab Arts Festival in July 2022, then at the Mina Image Center in Beirut in August 2022.
Copper plate etching print on cotton paper. 12x16 cm.
