WESTOWN CAIRO BLOCK 33

‘There is a promise, 7000 years old, consisting of built space – the city’ – the city as a treasury of spaces, the architect’s, the urbanist’s dream through the ages, something that got lost in our brave modern times, a dream that must be revitalised; consistent urban patterns must be reinvented again. Porosity as its most precious ingredient plays a vital role in that strive for urban dense space. This porous density – as it seems to us – is so much easier to achieve in the south, in an environment that doesn’t claim each single ray of sunlight to be gathered, that isn’t anxious about a vital public and semi public life of a neighbourhood, that is tolerant to the ‘horror’ of children’s play, screaming at the top of their voices.

So we did: – we think, this pattern of freestanding townhouses, with its multiple orientation of almost each apartment, with its prestige of almost-a-villa atmosphere, can do the job. The variety of apartment layouts of different sizes and orientation is almost unlimited, adoptable to the market. The rooftop villas, only schematically done in this conceptual, should be developed to singular characters, stressing the playful serenity of Block 33.

The wavelike gesture of the colonnade façades lining the Rambla makes the most out of the movement of the flaneur – the wave gives more direct and intimate connection to the shop windows in the shade of the colonnade, a better selling at the end, a consumers delight, serendipity-style.

SITE

Westown Cairo  Block 33
Cairo  Egypt

TYPOLOGY

Residential, office and retail

CLIENT

Sodic   Solidere International

ARCHITECT

Schultes Frank Architekten
Frank  Schultes  Witt

DESIGN

Axel Schultes   Charlotte Frank

COLLABORATORS

Timm   Bauer   Lobeck
Werner   Wiehl

PLANNING

since 2008

BUILT-UP AREA

23.000 m²

CONSTRUCTION

reinforced concrete   fair-faced concrete

HEIGHT

25 m

GROSS FLOOR AREA

71.650 m²