Mohamed Mouallem Portfolio

PORT

FOLIO

MOHAMED

MOUALLEM

M. Arch, B. Arch

2023

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MOHAMED MOUALLEM Edmonton, Alberta TEL 780 782 8220 EMAIL mouallemm10@gmail.com

Education B. Arch, Bond University

[2021]

M. Arch, University of Sydney

[2023]

Relevant Experience Design Charrette – lead by Phil Harris from Troppo Architects

[2019]

Design Charrette – lead by Rodney Eggleston from March Studio

[2020]

Skills Rhino Adobe CC – Photoshop, Illustrator, Indesign Enscape Twinmotion

CONTENT

COLLATERAL: ---------------------- [2023]

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A HUGE House: -------------------- [2022]

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Microcosmic Organ: --------------- [2023]

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COLLATERAL Year:

2023

Level:

Masters

Studio:

Architecture of Assassination

Traditionally, architecture thesis studios attend to an architectural brief where students are required to problematise a subject that operates within an architectural discourse in order to explore a research agenda.

This thesis studio was extremely unorthodox attending to, instead, an event heavily intertwined in the contemporary geopolitical discourse.

This project draws a parallel to the work of Eyal Weizman at Forensic Architecture.

Students were required to analytically and empirically analyse a US military raid that resulted in the assassination of Abu Baker al-Baghdadi, the then ISIS leader in order to investigate reports of civilian casualties.

Students were to than locate a ‘minor’ architecture within the event, utilizing the US Central Command report of the event that was recently made public due to the Freedom of Information Act–as well as open source material, photographs, satellite mapping, and various news coverage and investigations. The concept of the ‘minor’ is a spatiotemporal aspect of the assassination that escapes the gaze of a dominant order (the US military and government in this case) that requires an architectural reading and analysis.

The located ‘minor’ architecture functions as a node for an architectural deployment and investigation that attends to the empirical data of the event in order to investigate and explore architecture’s capacity for aberrant communication.

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Site of the alleged civilian casualties. Omar Haj Kadour/AFP, taken 27 Oct 19.

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Fragmented notion of ‘damage.’ Omar Haj Kadour/AFP, taken 27 Oct 19.

The ruin–no longer the preconceived notion of ‘a totality of destruction.’

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BLOCK

0

40

200

167.7

10

0

197.2

TIMBER

PAVEMENT

Every (damaged) architectural object has its own genealogy of accounts.

The ruin is no longer a totality of destruction, but independent lines of descent that require tracing and interpretation. They are no longer only objects, but collaterally subjects too. Through this reading the ruin must be granted both, representation and interpretation.

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The blurring of boundaries between spatial thresholds–the edge of ‘war’ and the edge of ‘urban,’ side by side.

US Military Report describes punctures and blow outs to a rectangular building, north of the van. The violence of the state has seeped its way into the ‘urban’ and built environment.

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Puncture–the materiality of the ruin behaves non-normatively in its spatial organization and (re)configuration.

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Strikes

Target

Frame

1

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US Department of Defense released ‘Air Strike Clip (13 sec.)’ of the raid–a spatio-temporal analysis.

US DoD video description: Close air aviation engages fighters who demonstrated hostile intent against U.S. forces during infiltration of the assault force.

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Collateral Damage

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4

13

x

x

x

x x

x

x

x

Intended Target Area

A spatial analysis of the final frame.

The act of violence is repeatable and replicable. In a military operation, it is a matter of an apparatus, with all of its mechanical parts functioning the exact same way, over and over again. The damage inflicted however, is absolutely unique. The Affect (with an ‘A’) may be entirely displaced, but the effect (with an ‘E’) still holds true and carries the same violence and intensity. It can no longer be perceived and articulated as ‘collateral.’

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x

‘Belligerents’

Locating belligerents–an instrument for scale and distance.

500 mm

One ‘Belligerent’ Unit ‘Belligerent’ figureground

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Moment of Collateral Damage

x

x

x

x x

17 ‘B

ellig

(8500

erent

mm)

s’

Architectural techniques demonstrate architecture’s capacity for aberrant communication and its ability to become operative in the analysis of acts of violence.

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Targ

x

get Area

x

x x

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3D model of the village of Barisha, Syria overlaid with news-report photography. The technique of ‘camera-matching’ deployed to survey and digitally model collateral damage on the built environment of interest.

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Empirical analysis of the digitally modeled collateral damage on the built environment of the raid operation.

0

2

4m

19

0

2

4m

Empirical analysis of the (re)configuration of ruination.

0

20

1

2m

300mm

300mm

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Subdividing the ruination in order to extract information about the ballistics of the collateral damage for a speculative analytical deployment.

0

22

1

2m

Speculated Helicopter Clearing-plane

Aircraft position

20m

Speculated fire on Enemy Quick Reaction Force (EQRF) position Speculated collateral fire on civilian home

Careful analysis of the empirical data paired with architectural techniques produces a body of work that constructs a speculative working model about the exact moment and intensity of collateral damage that was inflicted on to a civilian home during the raid operation. This was done by tracing the subdivisions of the ruination into lines of decent, similar to a genealogical reading–converging into a single meeting point representing the speculated position of the externally mounted weapon on the US military aircraft.

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A HUGE House Year:

2023

Level:

Masters

Studio:

A Huge House: 500 Student Housing I

Group members:

Hazel J, Denise T, Mohamed M

This studio explores domestic life through the architectural typology of student housing. Student housing inherently blurs public and private relations through the integration of various functions such as sleep, leisure and work. They have been spaces that reflect culture beyond mere living by hosting a diverse range of dynamics and social orders– between friends, enemies, lovers, and acquaintances. With current trends and challenges, the studio speculates that housing could remain idle, almost useless in the contemporary city. The student housing typology becomes an experiment and precedent for our cities and city living beyond the status quo.

Given the task of designing a 500-person student accommodation, we did not want to just divide up a giant building in the traditional manner.

We took the approach of organising units in a modular-unsystematic grid.

Units are of two types, a single-person unit (24 m²) & a double-person unit (64 m²) organised on a 4 meter by 4 meter spatial grid.

These units are combined to form multileveled ‘clusters’ of various typologies. Clusters are stacked forming 3 towers grouped around 2 voids, 3 circulation cores, and finally all horizontally connected at the base of each multilevelled cluster.

At each level, there is a concept of bridged pathways, balconies, overlapping stairs, and semi-outdoor enclosures. These architectural elements were designed in place to bring about serendipitous and spontaneous interactions between students and staff–escaping the notion of mundanity.

The appearance of the project takes a bold stance and presence– mirroring its unorthodox organisation of units.

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A Huge House - 500 Student Housing 1

Hazel Ji + Mohamed Mouallem + Denise Tu

A03 The Proposal II

A

A3

3 00

00

N

1:200 Typical Floor Plan

96 City Road, Sydney

1:200 Typical floor plan

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4000mm 8100mm 3980mm

2080mm 8100mm

1:20 Unit plan

N

1:20 Unit Plan

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96 City Road, Sydney

A Huge House - 500 Student Housing 1 A03 The Proposal II

Hazel Ji + Mohamed Mouallem + Denise Tu

threaded tie bar insitu concrete

3100mm

concrete panel

1:20 Detail, render courtesy of Hazel Ji 1:20 Detail

96 City Road, Sydney

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1:200 Section

1:200 Section, courtesy of Hazel Ji

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96 City Rd, Sydney

1:200 Site model

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A Huge House - 500 Student Housing 1 A03 The Proposal II

Hazel Ji + Mohamed Mouallem + Denise Tu

Exterior render, courtesy of Hazel Ji

Exterior Render

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96 City Rd, Sydney

A Huge House - 500 Student Housing 1 A03 The Proposal II

Hazel Ji + Mohamed Mouallem + Denise Tu

Interior render, courtesy of Hazel Ji

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Microcosmic Organ Year:

2023

Level:

Masters

Studio:

Soundscape+

Group members:

Annika K, Audley C, Mohamed M

This studio investigates sound as a driver for architectural design. This project was driven by the research and experimentation with sound through the development of a sound device prototype. Our prototype explored a pipe apparatus that operates by filling the pipe system with water, which pushes air out and then receding to allow air back in– producing a singular sound.

The acoustic-pipe apparatus became the driver for the architecture of our space(s)– a vision of an ‘acoustic’ organism growing out of the site, parasitic in nature. A chaotic system of pipes emerging from the ground–wrapping around and defining spaces. The clear expression and exposure of the apparatus is to become the distinctive architectural feature of the project.

The Microcosmic Organ is an architectural installation formed by 220 pipes that are supplied with water from the shore, resulting in a distinctive sound created by rapid changes in air pressure within the pipes. The mechanism operates in the same way of our sound device prototype. This installation not only introduces a unique and captivating soundscape but also forms a soundwalk spanning a length of 330 meters. The walk takes visitors through various levels, starting from the ground, leading onto the water, and finally to the underground, constantly changing its elevation and providing an immersive and dynamic experience. Underground is a meditation space that enhances the produced sounds through an understanding of the acoustical effects of materiality and spatial configuration. The calm rhythmic sounds paired with the reverberating domed-space induces a contemplative environment for its visitors.

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Meditation space render

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Axonometric rendered view

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Section

0

5

10

20m

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Exploded axonometric

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Sound distributing pipes

Sound accumulating pipes

Structural pipes

Steel paneled dome Meditation space Pier walkway Underground walkway

Site excavation

Sound input pipes

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Section

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0

5

10

20m

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Components of the pipe system.

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Sound distributing pipes

Structural pipes

Sound accumulating pipes

Sound input pipes

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Sound walk entry render

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Sound walk tunnel render

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Sound walk tunnel exit render

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Exterior render

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