Dr.Abdelhalim Ibrahim: Analysis & Comparisons of three significant projects

AN-NAJAH NATIONAL UNIVERSITY CONTEMPORARY ISLAMIC ARCHITECTURE - GRADUATE STUDIES - 2022

Abdelhalim Ibrahim Abdelhalim (1943- 2021)

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Presentation Content:

PART I: THE ARCHITECT…………………………………………………………………………………….…..4

PART II: THE THREE SELECTED PROJECTS ………………………………………………………………23

PART III: COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS & OUTCOMES ……………….………………………………………65

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PART I: THE ARCHITECT

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PART I: THE ARCHITECT

1- Overview about the architect

2- Significance of the Architect

3- Architect’s Background

4- Architect’s Qualifications & Academic Experience

5- Architect’s practice: Overview about CDC

6- Architect’s Research

7- Architect’s Design Principles

8- Architect’s Challenges

10- Quotes from the architect

11- Quotes on the architect

9- Architect’s Recognition

12- Abdelhalim Ibrahim: The human

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PART I: THE ARCHITECT

1- Overview about the architect

Academic, Educator, Architectural Design and Theory professor: Professor of Architectural Design and History of Architectural Thought in Cairo University

Practicing Architect, Principal of CDC (Community Design Collaborative), a private architectural/planning and community development consultancy firm.

Researcher: Participated in many publications, researches and conferences

2- Significance of the architect Abdelhalim Ibrahim Abdelhalim was a contemporary Egyptian architect who saw his role as social enabler, working for community betterment through design.

His work was inspired by its context, and often by the concepts he saw fitting to the projects at hand. Through a combination of diplomacy and persistence he successfully navigated the challenges of implementing large projects in his native Egypt at a time when functionalism was the order of the day.

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PART I: THE ARCHITECT

3- Architect’s Background

The major driving force that he was in his first ten years was the country's resistance against the English occupation of Egypt.

1943 Abdel Halim comes from a normal average Egyptian family from a small village in the Egyptian countryside by the name of El-Saff: This segment of the society has been under the continuous pressures of the un-equity problem that was a direct result of two things:

After the 1952 revolution, Nasser became the president of the Arab Republic of Egypt and adopted a socialist regime in the hope of establishing a new system based on social, political and economical justice, and of eliminating class differences, all of which the Egyptian society painfully suffered from until that day.

1962, Cairo, Egypt, propaganda poster Locals believed, at that time, that Egypt, through the modernization and industrialization process that was implemented by Nasser, was becoming stronger as the years went by. The defeat against Israels, was the breaking moment in his belief in the modern movement and the initiating point for his search for a suitable alternative.

In 1970, while Halim was continuing his studies in the United States, Saddat became the president of Egypt.

The drastic shift in the country's policies, from Socialism to Capitalism, after the 1973 war resulted in many ways in the deteriorating status of the poor segments of the Egyptian society.

When Halim came back to Egypt from his graduate studies in the United States in 1979, it was the peak of this shift.

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PART I: THE ARCHITECT

4- Architect’s Qualifications & Academic Experience

Abdelhalim Ibrahim Abdelhalim University of California, Berkeley, 1978 - Architecture - 868 pages

His education was completely Western oriented and, unlike most contemporary Egyptian architects, and always up to date with the rapid change in Western architectural theories with the help of books,periodicals, international conferences, trips, international competitions and direct involvement with Western architectural firms and institutions.

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PART I: THE ARCHITECT

5- Architect’s Practice: Overview about CDC

CDC (Community Design Collaborative) Halim was not only a firm but a school of thought.

This School of Thought was broken down to more than one discipline through the understanding of rituals and how different communities operate.

Type of Projects: Institutional Cultural Administrative Residential Retail Touristic & Recreational Urban Development

Focuses on the interaction between local communities and prevailing conditions.

The firm is known for master planning large cultural and educational complexes.

His son, Nour, who has run the Community Design Collaborative office for the past five years, and his daughter Amar, an architect and textile designer.

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PART I: THE ARCHITECT

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PART I: THE ARCHITECT

CDC Halim was not only a firm but a school of thought. This School of Thought was broken down to more than one discipline through the understanding of rituals and how different communities operate.

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PART I: THE ARCHITECT

CDC Halim was not only a firm but a school of thought. This School of Thought was broken down to more than one discipline through the understanding of rituals and how different communities operate.

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PART I: THE ARCHITECT

6- Architect’s Research ●

Publications on the Architect’s Practice

An article relating to the seminar of Islamic Gardens

A book chapter, speaking about his project’s design approach

An article in Mimar: Architecture in Development,international architecture magazine focusing on architecture in the developing world and related issues of concern. 1983

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PART I: THE ARCHITECT

7- Architect’s Design Strategies

1) Determining the spatial geometry and patterns of the design. He heavily depends on geometry as a main ingredient in his design strategy. He uses it as a way of ordering and conceptualizing the project in its context as well as a way of convey the cultural and symbolic concepts of the building to the users.

2) Determining the symbolic function of the building: To think of the building in a creative philosophical framework by responding to the functional aspects with symbolic and conceptual attitudes.

3) Redefining the production process: To re-connect the broken links between the society and its production procedures and systems through reorganizing the building process as well as redefining the tools and systems of the profession when ever needed so as to permit such a connection.

4) Relating all three previous aspects to the cultural structure of the society through the use of public cultural events such as what he calls the building ceremonies.

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PART I: THE ARCHITECT

7- Architect’s Design Strategies

Halim's design process can be divided into two main layers. The first is formal; realizes that concept in the forms and organizational systems and patterns of his design.

The second layer is circumstantial; where he devises ways of implementing his design, developing it, relating it to its social, economical, technical and natural contexts, and establishes appropriate organizational systems that help in the realization of the design.

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PART I: THE ARCHITECT

8- Architect’s Challenges C) Maintaining the balance between functionality & symbolism: In some projects, some viewed that he compromise the functionality of the project, due to the excessive expression of the underlying concept of the project

A)Rejection of the trend Similarly to selective egyptian architects, Abdelhalim ibrahim rejected Westernization trend in Egypt & the modern movement in architecture as he was totally against the standardization and universal claims that came with it.

Modernity that we live in today is based on a number of propositions, principles and doctrines that are not suitable for our lives."

B)Struggle with partis: In one of the projects, the cultural children park, it took Halim nearly seven years of struggling with the client, the contractors, the community and the building regulations and laws in addition of the fact that during these seven years, he was also struggling on other fronts of recognition and income.

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PART I: THE ARCHITECT

9- Architect’s Recognition

Laureate of Tamayouz Excellence Award’s highest accolade, the Tamayouz Lifetime Achievement Award 2020

Collaborations He collaborated with some of the world’s most renowned architects.

Worked with famous characters like Omar Nagati, Ayman Al-Gohary, Rasem Badran.

Collaborating with non-Egyptian architectural offices in the hope of expanding their market and insure an efficient flow of commissions that will help them endure the low amount of work that is provided by the Egyptian market alone.

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PART I: THE ARCHITECT

Dr. Abdelhalim ventured into different projects around the world. Here are some examples:

Several articles and books related to the field of architecture in islamic world covers the philosophy and designed projects of Dr.Abdel Halim.

Saini- Ras Sedr- Cairo, Egypt

Jordan

Uzbekistan

Kuwait - Bahrain- Oman -Qatar - UA, Gulf

Riyadh- Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

He has been acknowledged as a leading architect in the Egyptian Context both locally and internationally.

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PART I: THE ARCHITECT

More of his work can be further explored through An Architecture of Collective Memory by James Steele, published by AUC Press in 2019 19

PART I: THE ARCHITECT

10- Quotes from the Architect

“Rituals contain the configuration of the basic myth in its form, and regenerates the content of the myth in its encounter”

“Every community has its own concept of order — in designing, one must strike a balance between analysis, abstraction and rationality on one hand, and faith and the submission to a community’s ideas about order, on the other.”

"One of the most elemental human rituals of all the transfer of knowledge from one person, or one generation to another.

"an art that deals with Community Building and not just the building of a number of beautified buildings or the numerous buildings that form our ugly urban environment."

This is what liberal arts is about, the in between spaces; this is where the learning takes place."

Growth is the aim of production, while vitality is the aim of the culture.

The aim of production in our time is the accumulation of capital, authority and knowledge. The aim of culture is to regenerate the sense of identity; the creative energy and the mutuality of exchange between people.

This is what liberal arts is about, the in between spaces; this is where the learning takes place."

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PART I: THE ARCHITECT

11- Quotes on the Architect

The story of the architect's vision for the scheme, …, is one that is characterized by a mixture of courage and sensitivity, and determination not to allow the formidable bureaucracy he was faced with to defeat him."

- James Steele acknowledges this struggle in presenting the project in his book Architecture for a Changing World -

“To the receptive, meeting him, even briefly, was an exposure to a completely different way of looking at the world — to ideas you’d never really have thought about before. He was also a fighter, whose convictions constantly propelled him on” -Dr Ashraf Botros, a former staff member.

He is an architect, academic and, above all, a mentor whose legacy continues through generations of young Egyptian architects who, beside their mentor, are shaping Egypt and its architectural future.”

-Ahmed Al-Mallak, founding director of Tamayouz Excellence Award 21

PART I: THE ARCHITECT

12- Abdelhalim Ibrahim: The Human

He was a conversationalist par excellence, simultaneously expansive, and inspiring in his bringing together of disparate anecdotes, often to make a point about why a particular bridge or octagonal form made sense.

He was also astute and witty, wildly conceptual and yet well aware of the politics of the world in which he worked.

He took an interest in what the youthful had to say. A doodle or a caricature he came across in the office was enough to spark a conversation with a new team member, launching a relationship that lasted decades.

He wise and approachable patriarch, with grey beard, slightly wild hair, booming voice, and a calm, grounded presence.

Meetings with his team were something between an audience and a family gathering, in which he actively engaged at length, mainly with his more senior architects 22

PART II: THE THREE SELECTED PROJECTS

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PART II: THE THREE SELECTED PROJECTS

1- Project Characteristics

2- Challenges & Concerns: ● ● ● ●

Social Cultural Historic Built environment

3- Design Strategies: ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

Response to context Conceptualizing Spatial Geometry Conveying culture Response to function Symbolic Function & Response to function with concept Redefining production process Cultural Deep Structure

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PART II: THE THREE SELECTED PROJECTS

The American University in Cairo, New Campus Development, New Cairo, Egypt (Completed)

Children’s Cultural Park in Cairo (Completed)

Imam Mohamad Bin Saud Mosque (Completed) 25

PART II: THE THREE SELECTED PROJECTS

The American University in Cairo, New Campus Development, New Cairo, Egypt (Completed)

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PART II: THE THREE SELECTED PROJECTS

1- Project Characteristics

Project Typology: Institutional Client: The American University in Cairo Capital Cost: 300,000,000$ Area:250,000m2 Location: New Cairo Date: Completed in 2007 Period: 2001-2007 (6 years) Scope of Work: Prime architect in association with Sasaki Consultant, main consultant design and construction document phases for four parcels (admin, HUSS, PVA, and DDC), and technical support during construction

AUC selected two firms active in the early planning Sasaki and Associates (Watertown, Massachusetts, USA) and Abdel-Halim Community Development Collaborative (Cairo, Egypt)-as co-prime architects to lead the international team that would execute the plan.

Sasaki and Abdel-Halim CDC would design the university's three schools and adjacent structures.

Three other firms, all with strong prior university experience, received commissions for the remaining campus building library, campus center and student residences, the indoor and outdoor athletic complex, and landscape design.

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PART II: THE THREE SELECTED PROJECTS

2- Challenges & Concerns

A)

Social & Cultural: Education versus recreation and the complexity of the educational entities like colleges, schools, departments and so on

B) Historic: Researching the character of the existing University ( roughly 100 year old down town AUC Campus ) in its dense urban setting. It has a long history that coincides with a tumultuous period in the lifeline of Egypt itself with strong social and communal ties.

He asked the key question of how this character and these ties could be preserved and recreated in its new context.

C) Built Environment: Desert context of the project.

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PART II: THE THREE SELECTED PROJECTS

3- Design Strategies: Response to context Abdelhalim promoted treating the campus as an oasis in the desert due to stark landscape in current location.

Rather than being strictly axial and linear as the "promenade architecturale", however, the processional route that Abdelhalim has used in the new AUC masterplan serves as an internal street joining a series of courtyards of various scales, with a separate department grouped around each court

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3- Design Strategies: Conceptualizing Spatial Geometry

PART II: THE THREE SELECTED PROJECTS

From academic to recreational, administrative and services the architect designed a park-like setting for students and visitors.

One of the first design sketches broke the 250,000 square meter site into what was described as morphological units which are each based on internal courtyards of various sizes.

The outcome was a master plan with design principles for expansion strategically built into it.

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PART II: THE THREE SELECTED PROJECTS

3- Design Strategies: Conveying social culture: through patterns

The social design of those “in-between spaces”,shaded colonnade in front of classrooms shared by all three schools, plazas and courtyards connect visually to protected outdoor stairways, corridors and bridges above and encourage chance meetings and social connection., also helps create both architectural unity and a sense of community.

Across the campus, a continuous chain of enclosed spaces: ● ●

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Mirrors the rhythm and movement of campus life.

Inspired by the traditional urban fabric of Egypt’s capital city – particularly Sharia Al Muizz in Islamic Cairo – the “campus spine,” Tribute to the desert landscape Provides a campus texture for interchange of a thriving University community.

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PART II: THE THREE SELECTED PROJECTS

3- Design Strategies: Conveying culture: through patterns

The team’s vision of the campus master plan was the idea of linking physical space with AUC’s liberal arts philosophy, reflecting a pride in Egypt’s cultural history while also paving the way for the University community to take the lead in defining the spirit of the campus.

The notion of liberal arts education: through multiple arches, inspired by the multiple arches (Star-Ribbed Dome) of the Great Mosque of Cordoba.

Liberal arts in its essence is reaching the truth through multiple sources.

The structure was intentionally left uncovered, exposing the sky above it, to symbolize that beyond this gateway, the sky is the limit to what you can learn and create.

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PART II: THE THREE SELECTED PROJECTS

3- Design Strategies: Response to function: with symbols

The strategy of detaching the facades also succeeded in providing an identifiable visual image since it has been consistently implemented throughout the University in each of its different segmented departments. entrance towers and associated landscape treatment.

The archways that connect and support campus buildings, as well as the Mashrabiya-textured windows and structures, are rooted in traditions from Islamic art and architecture – a vital part of Egyptian cultural and religious history.

The gateways is implemented in the entrance towers, associated landscape treatment and entrance plaza

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PART II: THE THREE SELECTED PROJECTS

3- Design Strategies: Symbolic Function & Response to function with concept The campus is divided into three smaller campuses, each fulfilling a specific need.

1- THE LOWER CAMPUS was intended to be open to the public and AUC's face to the community. It was designed to invite the local community to participate in the life of the university through performance venues, parks, meeting spaces and the AUC bookstore.

The outcome was a master plan with design principles for expansion strategically built into it.

2- THE MIDDLE CAMPUS is the academic core of the campus. With all of the schools and research centers in one area to allow for consultation, intellectual exchange and academic excellence, it also includes the Library and Administration Building.

3- THE UPPER CAMPUS recognizes the needs of contemporary students to collaborate, socialize and multitask by providing an area full of lecture halls, meeting areas, residences and sports facilities. The student life area also brings recreation and relaxation to a student's daily routine

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PART II: THE THREE SELECTED PROJECTS

3- Design Strategies: Redefining production process: Environmental Considerations Palm trees and fountains placed in front of the gate, which serves several important functions. ●

The first is the key role that it plays in the overall environmental strategy that Abdelhalim has employed on this vast site, which is aimed at breaking down its scale into more comprehensible parts.

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The second is to filter and cool the dusty, sand laden winds coming in from the desert to the northwest.

The intricately inter-connected series of spaces in combination with landscaping ensures a constant flow of cool air from exterior to interior, upward through each building to openings at the top of the roof that allow the air to escape as it heats up.

Internal courtyards act as reservoirs for the cool night air that is typical of the desert in this area.

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PART II: THE THREE SELECTED PROJECTS

3- Design Strategies: Redefining production process: Community The international team embarked on a meticulous journey of research and travel to explore Egypt’s unique architectural history as well as navigate the existing landscape of New Cairo.

Inspired by Egypt’s history of advanced engineering practices, they revived traditional processes for cutting stone and sourced materials from Upper Egypt to build up the campus walls, bolstering the campus with the strength of a brilliant past.

The diverse international team prevented University’s future development from being constrained by a single architectural vision.

The finished campus would show each firm’s unique vision, but the process of working together would ensure there was harmony in the diversity.

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PART II: THE THREE SELECTED PROJECTS

3- Design Strategies: Cultural Deep Structure

From academic to recreational, administrative and services the architect designed a park-like setting for students and visitors.

Through the design of Abdelhalim Ibrahim (CDC) and Sasaki, a genius design was generated combining local architectural spirit with unique urban character.

The academic area of the new AUC campus is defined by a central open space, the Quadrangle Grove. This formal garden space unites the different schools and facilities into a unified environment.

A series of gardens and stands of palm trees that order the space define the Quadrangle Grove.

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PART II: THE THREE SELECTED PROJECTS

Children’s Cultural Park in Cairo (Completed)

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PART II: THE THREE SELECTED PROJECTS

1- Project Characteristics

Project Typology: Cultural Client: Ministry of Culture, Egypt Area: 4 acres Location: Heart of Historic Cairo, at the district of Sayida Zaynab. The original name of the site was alHoud al-Marsoud, ‘the enchanted pond.

Date: Completed in 1992 Period: 1983-1992 (9 years) Scope of Work: Main consultant: design, construction docs and construction supervision Recognition: Aga Khan Award for Architecture

This project was put forward as a competition, organized by the Egyptian Ministry of Culture, in 1987. Abdelhalim recognized that it had the potential to be a perfect forum for expressing the principles he had been developing since 1967, and replied enthusiastically to the call for entries.

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PART II: THE THREE SELECTED PROJECTS

2- Challenges & Concerns C) Historic: The site for the proposed park is the remains of EI-Houd EI-Marsoud, an historic garden dating from the MamJuk period in Egypt.

Clusters of the original trees remain, with groups of palm trees, eucalyptuses, giant haJI, «ali and ancient Egyptian trees calledgomeze.

The environment resembles a jungle from the outside, and a wasteland from the inside.

A)Social: Occasionally a few children gather to play there, without any real support from the environment, at the borders of the park; thus, they are more related to street-life than to the life of the park.

D) Built Environment: Fitting an ancient park in an urban context: it is a clear example of the ritual of regeneration, because it has renewed an area of the city that was once vital and thriving but had become derelict and abandoned.

Use of the park by street gangs generates a sense of danger.

B) Cultural: The annual festival in honour of Sayeda Zenab, the woman saint for whom the whole neighborhood is named, brings people and activities momentarily back into the park, transforming the place and revealing the real potential for development.

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3- Design Strategies: Response to context Cairo is one of the noisiest cities in the world, with decibel levels caused by traffic that are far beyond a normal range The site is situated on a main thoroughfare that also leads to the Mosque of Ibn Tulun.

This allows a clear view from the site to the signature, spiraling form of the minaret of what is generally considered to be one of the most important monuments in both Cairo and the entire Islamic world.

In this context, surrounded by buildings on all sides, building a park is an act of clearance, the transformation of ‘jungle’ into a garden.

The minaret of Mosque of Ibn Tulun, near the site, evokes again the analogy with a tree

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PART II: THE THREE SELECTED PROJECTS

3- Design Strategies: Conceptualizing Spatial Geometry

The intervals of the palm trees were taken as the modality, or the pitch by which the spiral grows.

The spiral became a geometric system in which every tree is a pole, a point in a matrix; the whole is turned into a field of energy activated by the power of the transformed symbol of the Ibn Tulun minaret.

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PART II: THE THREE SELECTED PROJECTS

3- Design Strategies: Conveying culture: through patterns

The beginning point for geometric order is also a place for water, a fountain, upon which all life in the garden depends; the end point is a lone tree at the other extremity of the palm tree axis. This reflects the magnificence of community gardens in Islamic tradition

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PART II: THE THREE SELECTED PROJECTS

3- Design Strategies: Symbolic Function The major components of that idea diagram are: clearly defined boundaries or edges, which are permeable enough to allow the local residents to feel welcome, along with a protected, green space in the middle and an internal pedestrian street near the southern boundary wall that conforms to its curved outline.

In the garden we find him using a very sophisticated system of geometric coordinates to lay down the spirals of his design.

Inspired from Growth in Nature

Emphasis on symbolic and conceptual ideas that drive the design is the idea of growth as the relating aspect between both children and garden in his Cultural park and thus, choosing the spiral as the symbol of growth and vitality.

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PART II: THE THREE SELECTED PROJECTS

3- Design Strategies: Symbolic Function & Response to function with concept As outlined in the programme for the proposed transformation of the park, facilities were to be created specifically for children including a theatre for 400 persons, exhibition spaces for artwork, a museum for children, a library, a video room and multi-purpose spaces. These areas were not to exceed 12% of the site, the rest of which would be renovated as gardens:

Growth is a shared, unifying feature between the garden and children: and the minaret of Ibn Tulun directing upward towards oneness with the sky.

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Entrance

Around the water source a helix grows in an inverse direction to that of the Ibn Tiilun minaret. This space, which makes the entry to the garden, is a void in which the original lesson of the minaret reverberates with the movement of children at play, climbing up and down, penetrating its rules and secrets. The entrance walls are also mirrors reflecting the life and vitality of everyone who passes. Mural paintings or other exhibits can also be accommodated on the walls.

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Library & Atelier

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PART II: THE THREE SELECTED PROJECTS

3- Design Strategies: Symbolic Function & Response to function with concept

Growth is an organising principle & a link to context: The spiral of the Ibn Tulun minaret, which moves upward to symbolise the growth of consciousness through the act of prayer, has been transposed in our project to a spiral moving horizontally, spreading across the site. Whereas the minaret is a solid, ours is a void; the act of praying is a kind of ascending, whereas the child will run through the spaces of the helix

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PART II: THE THREE SELECTED PROJECTS

3- Design Strategies: Response to function with symbols

Three elements, water point, children's museum and theatre, are the main poles around which sets of activities, and hence meanings, are created within the realm of a park.

The site is then organised in stepped platforms following the geometry created by the spiral.

The platforms move upwards toward the middle of the site to form an arena-like park, then they tum in the opposite direction forming a downhill arrangement towards the end of the site where the museum is located.

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PART II: THE THREE SELECTED PROJECTS

3- Design Strategies: Redefining production process: Community

The park is designed and built by an outstanding community participation. Abdelhalim engaged the local community with the design process and used building materials from the local context.

The strategy that CDC agreed upon was to provide a series of idea diagrams that could then be formalized through interaction with the Sayeda Zeinab community once the commission had been secured.

This involves a specialized level of education. This project has challenged the attitudes of both the Egyptian professional architects and the craftsmen, technicians and contractor, to work together with new ideas and new ways of doing what they do, learning from each other while equally contributing to the construction process

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PART II: THE THREE SELECTED PROJECTS

3- Design Strategies: Redefining production process: Process

The precise shape of any stage is defined as the work progresses.

Each phase is itself a seed for the following phases. As an example, the entrance is the seed of the theatre. The building process itself is organised as a series of events; each combines technical work with cultural aspects of that particular operation

Adapting traditional craftsmanship in the , design process of the park

Experimenting and preparing referenced models for repetition.

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3- Design Strategies: Cultural Deep Structure Delivering architecture as an educational tool The first concerns the literal meaning of education, i.e., teaching children. Teachers from the surrounding schools use the domes, arches and the ordering coordinates in their geometry lessons, and by learning in the workshops provided, pupils see their lessons as a continuation of their cultural heritage

Second is addressing many issues and attitudes prevailing in the surrounding community and on the level of the decision-makers, criticizing these attitudes and challenging them in different ways: spirals as labyrinths, where everyday, they discover something new, a discovery that satisfies something deep down in them. They learn from the nature and art (architecture and library).

Children can relate to the part, make use of it, find themselves in it, and are preserving it.

As for the grownups, the Park was a radical challenge at the beginning; for it redefined their habits of thinking and of seeing.

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PART II: THE THREE SELECTED PROJECTS

Imam Mohamad Bin Saud Mosque (Completed)

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PART II: THE THREE SELECTED PROJECTS

1- Project Characteristics

Project Typology: Edutainment / Culture Client: Al Riyadh High Development Authority Area: 8500 SQM Worshippers: 2400 Location: Riyadh 13734, Saudi Arabia Date: Completed in 1996 Services:Landscape Arch.Urban Planning Scope of Work: Main consultant and site supervision. Concept to construction documents to master planning, landscape, architecture, structure, MEP, and coordination

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2- Challenges & Concerns A)Social & Cultural: Involving locals through adapting their rituals and customs B) Historic: The mosque is located in Turaif Neighborhood considered one of the most important landmarks in historic Addiriyah, 22 km from the Kingdom’s capital Riyadh. It is home to important archeological buildings, palaces and historical monuments. In 2010, Turaif Neighborhood was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site.

C) Built environment: The integration between natural and built environment creates a major design challenge, the landscape design aimed to integrate the historical mosque within its natural environment.

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PART II: THE THREE SELECTED PROJECTS

3- Design Strategies: Response to context

Throughout Abdelhalim’s work, a need to incorporate the local context, rituals and customs is evident.

Three main components were blended in a harmonious scheme to form the overall governing geometry: al-Saha, the wall and the mosque together with the existing garden and palm trees.

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PART II: THE THREE SELECTED PROJECTS

3- Design Strategies: Conceptualizing Spatial Geometry

The site is divided into three distinct areas separated from each other by walls or buildings. They are the mosque and the plaza area, residence for Imam and Moazin, and lastly a large garden part of which will contain plant samples from different parts of the Kingdom. In the southern part of the site there is a library and a multi-purpose hall.

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PART II: THE THREE SELECTED PROJECTS

3- Design Strategies: Conveying culture through geometry

Abdelhalim was asked to develop both short and long-term plans to restore the original character of the city of al-Dir’iyah, the ancestral home of the Al Sa’ud family.

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3- Design Strategies: Symbolic Function

The two minarets have exposed stairs, echoing the traditional Najd minarets as well as the neo-traditional minarets in the diplomatic quarter.

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3- Design Strategies: Response to function with concept

The mosque is designed in a traditional local style and contains a small courtyard.

It is a rectilinear building with two square minarets

The structural system of the mosque uses a square grid, with columns 7.20 meters apart.

Worshipers, arriving on foot or by car, walk through geometrical hardscape design in earthy rainbow colors, while those heading toward the historical district view gravel paved areas filled with fragrant citrus trees.

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PART II: THE THREE SELECTED PROJECTS

3- Design Strategies: Redefining production process: Process

According to Alam Al.Bnaa, CDC did on-site testing to determine how to both control the amount of light penetrating into the interior and to maximise it for full effect where needed to induce a sacred feeling of piety, or taqwa, especially concentrating on the mihrab.

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3- Design Strategies: Cultural Deep Structure

The plaza design offers a grandeur entrance to the mosque, a combination of magnificent marble intercepted with palms as punctuations for prayer distribution, a solemn vision of individuals in prayer postures.

There is a large plaza in front of the mosque which can be used for open-air prayer or ceremonies. In one corner of the plaza the designer proposes a tent which can function as wind tower and it could be used for poetry reading or similar activities.

The project aims at putting adjacent experiences: praying (as a spiritual practice) & relaxing (as a spiritual act through nature & open spaces) 64

PART III: COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS & OUTCOMES

PART III: COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS & OUTCOMES

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PART III: COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS & OUTCOMES

One of Abdel Halim's Developed theories

Selected Methodology for comparison

Comparison Objectives

The role of architecture in developing countries: Six major points:

Reasons for Selection

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Brings out Architect’s significance among others

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Develops understanding the link between theories and practice

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Connects the ‘time’ of architecture: the past and future

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Beggs for a discussion on local context: developing countries

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Creates a reflection for contemporary and future architecture projects

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Develops understanding of distinctive approaches, yet falling under same strategy

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Links to the course outcomes

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PART III: COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS & OUTCOMES

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Development of theories

The role of architecture in developing countries: Six major points: First: Developing societies live in a state of an almost total separation from their personal creative capacity.

Second: The distance between these societies' creative moments of the past and their present can not be crossed by imitating the past and its symbols, but by the stimulation of the forces of creativity and liveliness of the whole society in general and its intellectuals in particular.

Third: Architectural and Urban design, more than any other activity in our developing world, have a great capability to stimulate these forces and express them through the act of building. This attitude derives from his belief in the possibility of using architecture as a teaching and developing tool, i.e., a 'pedagogic' tool, to change established and taken for granted attitudes

Fourth: Re-defining all interrelations and institutional systems of the architectural profession so that they can help in this stimulation.

Fifth: Formulate new spatial relations and configurations that are connected with the creative moments of the society. Concentration on the architectural and urban concepts and experiences that have the capacity to take us on into the boundaries of the future in a way that consolidates our present existence.

Sixth: Problems of the so-called developing countries reside in "the separation between the production process and the society's culture;" and, thus, he calls for re-connecting them.

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PART III: COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS & OUTCOMES

Personal creative capacity.

Forces of liveliness of the whole society & its intellectuals

Application of Liberal Art

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Urban Character: Park-like setting.

Plazas, courtyards connect visually to protected outdoor stairways, corridors and bridges in-between spaces

Transforming an abandoned jungle to a liveable park

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Creative places:children's museum and theatre

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Creating movement within the geometries

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Integrating Saha ( a purely public spaces) to mosque ( a purely sacred place) ●

Creative opening geometries to integrate lighting

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Redefining the spiritual space with adjacent cultural spaces: library and a multi-purpose hall Open-air praye

Connection to context ●

Using architecture as a teaching and developing tool

Symbolic function of spaces for learning

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Studied geometries: domes Children learn from the nature and art as labyrinths evokes deep learning

Respecting archeological site & remaining heritage

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PART III: COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS & OUTCOMES

Re-defining all interrelations and institutional systems of the architectural profession

Formulate new spatial relations and configurations that extends to the future from the present

Re-connecting between the production process and the society's culture

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International collaboration Reviving traditional processes for cutting stone and sourced materials from Upper Egypt to build up the campus walls,

Spatials for Expansion

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Reviving the cultural spirit of the old campus Provision of an Identified visual image of the campus

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Particular construction drawing system that depends on proportions instead of dimensions for the craftsmen Collaboration & Respect between multiple partis

Spatials for Growth & Repetition

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Bringing people and activities momentarily back into the park during annual festival in honour of Sayeda Zenab

On-site testing for the lighting component affecting the major principle for a sacred experience of the user

Possible Creative use of the Saha

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Reviving the original character of the city: minarites & wind towers Envisioning area of the plaza for poetry reading: link to rituals

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PART III: COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS & OUTCOMES

Conclusion - Relation to course outcomes

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Abdelhalim Ibrahim had a leading position in forming and presenting a critical attitude to the general architectural profession in Egypt, and studying putting an eye on his contribution expands a similar critical attitude to the contemporary architectural profession, which can exceed the limit of a specific region.

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His work was considered as being oppositional or resistant professional group, which can be inspirational to resist the still-existing, challenges in between tradition and modern dilemma.

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Resistance embedded a complex, yet authentic process and a holistic study of the two sides.

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Architecture is a social reform tool, which is valid for all times and locations.

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Innovation in architectural practice is a key that creates a 'creative' fabric and 'redefines’ the organizing systems and institutions of the profession.

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Symbolism is a tool for diversifying the use of space: culture, social, environmental attributes.

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A project is an alive tool - remaining heritage, narrative and philosophy.

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Literature and critical thinking is a development for a critical design.

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References Architects. (n.d.). The American University in Cairo. Retrieved July 2, 2022, from https://www.aucegypt.edu/ar/node/252 CDC AbdelHalim. (2016). Narratives of The Built and Unbuilt - AUC Campus. Community Design Collaborative.

CDC Abdel-Halim - Home. Retrieved July 2, 2022, from http://www.cdcabdelhalim.com/ Halim, A. H. (n.d.). EI-Houd EI-Marsoud, Cairo.

Hany, M., Abdrabou, N., & Berty, D. (n.d.). Melodies of Design: Abdelhalim Ibrahim Architecture Projects. Architecture and Design Magazine. Retrieved July 2, 2022, from https://linesmag.com/melodies-of-design-abdelhalim-ibrahim-architectural-projects/ Harrouk, C. (2020, August 21). Renowned Egyptian Architect Abdelhalim Ibrahim Abdelhalim Wins 2020 Tamayouz Lifetime Achievement Award. ArchDaily. Retrieved July 2, 2022, from https://www.archdaily.com/946072/renowned-egyptian-architect-abdelhalim-ibrahim-abdelhalim-wins-2020-tamayouz-lifetime-achievement-award MAJOR WORKS BY DR ABDELHALIM IBRAHIM ABDELHALIM. (n.d.). Tamayouz Excellence Award. Retrieved July 2, 2022, from https://tamayouz-award.com/major-works-by-dr-abdelhalim-ibrahim-abdelhalim/ Nabil, Y. M. (1994). Reconciliations and Continued Polarities in the Works and Theories of Halim and Bakri. M.I.T. p.

(PDF) Architecture of the contemporary mosque | Aulia Yaminjunior. (n.d.). Academia.edu. Retrieved July 2, 2022, from https://www.academia.edu/1181015/Architecture_of_the_contemporary_mosque SHAFIK, Z., & EL-HUSSEINY, M.-A. (2019). Re-visiting the Park: Reviving the “Cultural Park for Children” in Sayyeda Zeinab in the shadows of Social Sustainability. Journal of Contemporary Urban Affairs, 3(2), 84–94. https://doi.org/10.25034/ijcua.2018.4704 SITES INTERNATIONAL - IMAM MOHAMED BIN SAUD MOSQUE. (n.d.). SITES International. Retrieved July 2, 2022, from https://www.sitesint.com/projects/imam-mohamed-bin-saud-mosque/

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"An art that deals with Community Building and not just the building of a number of beautified buildings or the numerous buildings that form our ugly urban environment."

-Abdelhalim Ibrahim-