On Cloud Nine
1st place prize (Young Visionary Architect Competition 2024)
Year: 2023
Location: Cairo, Egypt
Program: school, Community Center
1st place prize (Young Visionary Architect Competition 2024)
Year: 2023
Location: Cairo, Egypt
Program: school, Community Center
The primary education system in Egypt is recognized as one of the largest in the region. Egypt’s primary schools approximately have 14.4 million students accounting a percentage of 54.7% out of all stages. Egypt Vision 2030 has set a target to improve Egypt’s ranking in the Global Competitiveness Index’s Quality of primary education from 141 In 2016 To 30 by 2030. It’s important to note that the concept of education quality relies on a heterogenous factors including teaching methods, learning materials, human resources, among others.
However, the crucial tackle that influences the overall educational quality that provides a healthy environment for the learning process is the schools typologies and configuration.
Schools in Egypt exhibit various architecture configurations which impact the whole learning process quality. Minor configuration for layouts is ‘’clustered and central around court’’ typologies, while the major configuration for the school’s layout adopts linear-Single loaded & double loaded- plans.
Furthermore, the prevalence of applying linear layout typology with standardized classrooms for most of Egyptian schools is not mimicking the children’s motivation to engage and interact with the environment. Children have more pleasure in construction and organization of the spaces rather than simply using them, they have an active imagination with a very diverse thoughts, that is leading them to prefer spaces that allow creative expressions kids are not interested in a specific architecture style nor straight lines, they don’t want to be contained at a subtle space with a precise measurement, they desire to project their imagination onto the world around.Thus, Establishing the children as the centre of the process, steers the design into a dynamic formation to open the world for the kids to be the place-makers with an active participation in shaping their environment. Using a various agglomeration, the children can have their own identification for the spaces, fostering the sense of the ownership and identity, the fundamental message of the vigorous superimposed configurations, is to create a fluid natural spatial quality to unleash the traditional school boundaries.