Location: El-Zamalek, Cairo , Egypt

Scope: Soundscape Design Project

Description: We were asked to redesign an area in Cairo based on Sustainable urban design standards and consider aural dimension during the design. 

The great Nile river, is one of Egypt's source of individualities, since the inhabitants of old Egyptians on its shores and the creation of their magnificent civilization. All signs of life were around this blessed vein feeding all kinds of life and after life in all their rituals. The Egyptians' contact with the Nile River and its protection meant their prosperity and survival.

Egypt was an agricultural paradise in the first place, but as time passed of time and the steady population increase and urban chaos, this historical link between the Egyptians and the Nile River weakened, and this appeared clearly in what the river turned to in recent decades. Garbage multiplied on its banks, slums scattered around the course of the Nile, and the river became a tributary for some industries that received their waste without supervision.

However, the awareness of the Egyptians and their leadership of the importance of the Nile River led to several governmental and societal campaigns to raise awareness and rationalize the use of this precious resource.

Concept: The main theme of the project involves the use of the water wheel (saqia-الساقية), an ancient invention to raise water for use in irrigation and water supply. In this design, we took into account sustainable farming methods by which the energy (movement) of water drives the irrigation wheel and generates the simple electricity needed by the water purification unit (which also works with solar energy),that in turn irrigate the areas required in the project.

In this design, we used the sound of the water wheel and the sound of the flowing river water to create an acoustic environment in the background of the project that contributes to transforming this point (area) from the river shore into a comfortable attraction, so that no sound is louder than the sound of the simple Nature of the place.