Hassan Fathy, 1900 to 1989, was an Egyptian architect and a pioneer of sustainable architecture. His philosophy emphasized building with local materials and traditional techniques. He revived the lost skill of building homes and streets out of clay bricks, and out of that native material, built houses, mosques, and even an entire village. 

Fathy had unconventional, almost romantic, views on the power of architecture to improve even the most humble home. His Westernized contemporaries dismissed his ideas as irrelevant – throwbacks to the past in a world eager to pursue modernity. Almost unknown in Western culture, his vision, so ahead of its time, is beginning to intrigue architects again.

Before beginning to design a blueprint, Fathy studied the ecological conditions of the proposed locale, especially considering which direction winds blow there during the 24 hours. He designed windows and walls pierced in lattice designs to create shade and allow cooling ventilation to run through the rooms.  His wrote about his experiences with sustainable design in a seminal work, “Natural Energy and Vernacular Architecture, Principles and Examples With Reference To Hot Arid Climates.”

He had a passion for the simple beauty of curved lines, holding that rooms with walls and roofs designed around curves, rather than geometrical lines, have the power to heal.

Most of all, he believed that the poor deserve not only comfortable homes but also beautiful surroundings that reflect timeless Egyptian designs and Islamic themes. 

Fathy’s students revered him as a sort of guru, but the Egyptian government, perhaps suspicious of his unconventional approach, failed to fund his projects to completion. Yet his projects survive, some physically on the ground and some in his collection of original blueprints, drawings, and published articles housed in the archives of the Aga Khan Trust for Culture in Geneva, Switzerland, and at the American University of Cairo. 

Fathy’s most impressive project was the construction of New Gourna Village between 1946 and 1952 at Luxor, Egypt. (It’s in shambles) The residents of the original Gourna lived over the Thebes cemetery. They made their living robbing the Pharaonic tombs and selling the antiquities on.  When the government woke up to the fact that priceless artifacts had been flowing out of Gourna for decades, they decided that the only way to stop the traffic was by relocating the residents. Although public officials had never been friendly toward Fathy, they granted him the construction of New Gourna in 1946.

Fathy proposed using clay bricks rather than cement to build New Gourna, although the skill had long since been forgotten in that part of Egypt. Having already successfully created clay buildings in Saudi Arabia, India and Greece, he brought skilled Nubian builders to teach the Gourna villagers. His reasoning was partly to use sustainable basic material and partly to provide the Gournians with a new, lucrative skill. Rather than robbing tombs, they would turn to agriculture, crafts, and brick-making. 

Remembering Hassan Fathy – Egypt’s Green Architect Of the People

He  invited the Gournians to participate in planning the new village, using their input in planning its buildings and layout. Important spaces like the mosque, the boy’s school, the khan and market naturally took prominence, but he was careful to oversee the smallest details in every home; for example, long benches built inside houses and courtyards, which, covered with cushions, served as  seating and even as beds for sleeping on during the hottest summer nights.

One anomaly was an outdoor theater, which still stands although it has never hosted a performance.

New Gourna village is now part of the World Heritage Centre property in Egypt.  Its homes and khan are seriously deteriorating today under factors like climate change, overcrowding, and underground water seepage. The village’s population has grown through multiple families under the same roofs, as men acquire second or third wives. The foundations, based on clay and salt, are collapsing.

There is still no modern sewage system. Sewage cisterns originally regularly emptied by trucks going around the streets, are leaking into the ground.  Residents, rightly concerned about the roofs over their heads, are clearing Fathy buildings away and building with concrete and red bricks. The Egyptian government neglects the situation. 

An article published in the Cairo Observer in 2013 argues that Fathy’s beliefs idealized the concepts of sustainable construction to the detriment of the people living in his buildings.

It’s acknowledged that New Gourna and other projects of Fathy’s were not built to withstand future changes. But Gournians, vehemently attached to their village, welcome reconstruction via UNESCO’s  World Heritage Centre, at the urging of the international association Save the Heritage Of Hassan Fathy. 

“We want to rebuild Gourna in Hassan Fathy’s spirit, although not with his materials,” they say. 

For Fathy’s spirit lives on. His “Architecture for the Poor: An Experiment in Rural Egypt” published in 1973, continues to inspire a new generation of architects around the world.

For more on Hassan Fathy and Gourna see:
Remembering Hassan Fathy – Egypt’s Green Architect Of the People
Hassan Fathy is the Middle East’s Father of Sustainable Architecture
13 Principles of Sustainable Architecture

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What on earth is a vertical forest? It’s a forest that doesn’t grow on the earth. It grows in troughs placed on the balconies of residential buildings, hotels, and parks, making huge urban green spaces that don’t take up ground space, but rise skyward.  Today’s overcrowded, denatured, polluted cities are only waiting for them. They are the brainchild  of Italian architect and urban planner Stefano Boeri.

Boeri’s office, Stefano Boeri Architetti,  has already planted 27 vertical forests in cities around the world. Now Egypt has accepted plans for three seven-story forested buildings to be built in the New Administrative Capital, which is planned to replace Cairo as the capital city.  One of the three buildings will be a hotel; the other two will contain apartments. Planned together with Egyptian designer Shimaa Shalash and Italian landscape architect Laura Gatti, the buildings will house terraces containing 350 trees and 14,000 shrubs of more than 100 different species. 

What’s wonderful about vertical forests? A few hundred square meters of building can host thousands of square meters of trees and shrubs. Each  balcony may hold over a dozen trees from three to nine meters high, plus smaller plants. It’s calculated that one vertical forest holds the equivalent of two hectares of woodland and ground level undergrowth.

Apartment dwellers in forested buildings enjoy the human feeling of closeness to nature that until now was the privilege of those living in houses with yards. They can follow the seasons as their trees and bushes change colors, fade, and bloom again over the year. Greenery guarantees cleaner air  for residents and for the city as a whole, as plants filter ambient dust, absorb carbon dioxide and produce oxygen. Plants also act as a shield against city noise. 

Vertical forests can help stabilize climate change. The shade cast over buildings walls and glass facades deflects sun glare and in summer, can reduce interior temperatures significantly. (As we noted, the need for shade in cities is becoming more and more urgent.) With comfortable indoor temperatures, residents won’t automatically switch the air conditioning on, thus reducing their, and the city’s, greenhouse emissions.  

An example in the works is the Nanjing Vertical Forest, the first vertical forest in China. It has two towers that contain 800 trees from 27 local species and 2,500 cascading plants and shrubs. It’s projected to absorb 18 tons of CO₂ per year and  produce 16,5 tons of oxygen. 

The natural habitats of birds and insects are fast disappearing to make room for urban construction. A building planted with a vertical forest actually attracts small wildlife, not only helping to preserve species but to preserve human varieties of food crops. As is known, many important crops depend on insect pollination, such as watermelons, stone fruit, nuts, and avocados. Bees or butterflies that visit flowering shrubs in a forested apartment balcony may well help fertilize food crops in fields or groves outside the city limits. 

How are vertical forests made and maintained? The plant troughs are placed on balconies. The photo below shows how. 

They are 1.10 meters high and up to 1.10 meters wide. The growing medium is a mix of soil, compost, and volcanic material that helps keep the mass light. Irrigation comes from groundwater pulled by a solar-powered pump system on the roof to all the troughs in the building. The plants used in this project are chosen according to the demands of the climate and installed in the troughs as saplings, slowly naturalizing to their new conditions. The troughs and plants are maintained under building regulations.

Ideally, cities would construct many such vertical forests. The Boeri site describes a future urban ecosystem where birds and insects thrive and help green the environment.

 “The creation of a number of vertical forests in the city can set up a network of environmental corridors which will give life to the main parks in the city, bringing together the green space of avenues and gardens and interweaving various spaces of spontaneous vegetation growth.”

All images via Stefano Boeri Architetti.

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Italian architect Giancarlo Zema has designed an eco-friendly floating dwelling called the WaterNest 100.  The 100 square meter units are made of up to 98% recycled materials including its aluminum frame and laminated timber cladding. Sixty square meters of rooftop photovoltaic panels provide about 4 kWp of clean electricity, enough to power the needs of a one-bedroom dwelling or office function.

The interior of WaterNest 100 can accommodate a bedroom, bathroom, living room, dining area and kitchen. It can also be configured as an exhibition space or workspace. Large windows and skylights provide ample daylighting, and open air balconies maximize waterfront views while also allowing for an efficient system of natural micro-ventilation, minimizing the need for mechanically conditioned air.  So far so good, if this was This is the Architecture 101, the basics of decent residential design

The units are available through EcoFloLife, a London-based business specializing in the design and construction of eco-friendly floating homes. Their website states, “The world around us is becoming increasingly chaotic and conformist…ongoing climate changes and the resulting sea- and river-level rises force us to ponder on the eco-sustainability of our housing choices.” Fair enough, but how do these floating homes actually work?

The 12 meter diameter units can be positioned along rivers, lakes, bays, atolls and calm sea areas. The EcoFloLife catalogue provides top-design eco-friendly furnishings that complement the design and meet most contemporary needs.

The world around us is becoming increasingly chaotic and conformist, requiring fully eco-friendly and recyclable housing units, which allow us to live in complete independence and in harmony with nature, while respecting and admiring it. The ongoing climate changes and the resulting sea- and river-level rises force us to ponder on the eco-sustainability of our housing choices. EcoFloLife is committed on the topic of environmental sustainability with its floating and eco-friendly residential units.

Images via EcoFloLife website 

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An unnamed client hired London-based Baharash Architecture to design a luxury home that could fully function off the energy grid. That’s a tall order for any residence in Abu Dhabi, now consider the challenges for one sited in the punishing clime of the hyper-arid Liwa Desert where summer temperatures top 100°F.

The star-shaped structure is modestly sized at approximately 6,000 square feet and will feature a living room, kitchen, two bedrooms, and central “great room”. Floor-to-ceiling glass walls permit panoramic views of the surrounding desert scenery. These fixed-glass “windows” will be electrochromic; they can be mechanically tinted for shade and privacy with a press of a button that activates ionic motion within layers of glass, quickly changing the glass panels from clear to opaque.

Baharash Bagherian, founder of the design firm that bears his name, said in a statement, “We are seeing a new generation of Emiratis who are looking to lead a more sustainable lifestyle, in line with UAE’s vision to become one of the most sustainable countries in the world.”

The project press release did not define other sustainability features planned for the $2 million vacation home. Simple technology for solar energy production can readily supply the building with all its daytime electricity needs, but there is no information regarding nighttime power supply. Similarly, there is scant info on planned efficiencies for building systems and appliances. How will the structure be insulated to reduce heat gain and loss?

Eco-friendly construction is becoming increasingly prioritized in the UAE, specifically as relates to energy consumption, and the nation is a regional leader in renewable energy generation and municipal recycling. But in the Middle East, water is a greater priority. Many modern MENA municipalities still operate on a pumped water procedure, where homes feed off individual water storage tanks which are periodically replenished from a city supply. Said differently, there isn’t always water when you turn on a tap. How will potable water be conveyed to this structure? And – on the flip side – how will sewage and waste be removed?

There’s an outside chance that green specifications are lost in translation; that press coverage of purportedly “green” buildings is selective, overlooking system technology and focusing on structural form instead. But by glossing over the fuller environmental impacts of a new building (how will it be accessed? does it require new roads? will it encourage more development in an otherwise pristine and ancient natural setting?), projects like these are nothing more than “lipstick on a pig”.

Photography courtesy of Baharash Architecture

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Islamic versus non-Islamic or simply Western style architecture is an issue in many parts of the Middle East where locals, kingdoms and sheikdoms refuse or steadfastly hold onto their identity.

Look at the Arab Gulf States like Dubai where giant, glass fronted skyscrapers dominate the skyline.

These futuristic structures are being called cheap and anonymous by prominent architects like Frank Gehry. In Saudi Arabia the king there is attempting to wipe historic holy sites off the map by developing over them. ISIS too is wiping history off the map with their own agenda.

But Iran is very different than the rest of the Arab world right now. And legistlators there are trying to buck the trend of modernism.

The Iranian back end story

Architecture in the Islamic Republic of Iran, which for centuries followed a more traditional style of environmentally green designs gave way to more modern styling during the 53 year period of the Pahlavi monarchies; especially during the reign of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who reigned from September 1941 until February 1979.

During his 38 year “off and on” reign, Shah Reza Pahlavi made great efforts to introduce Western culture into the country, which also included dramatic changes in Iran’s architectural styling.

See traditional fishbowl architecture from Iran.

Although modern architectural styling continues to change the face of Iranian cities like Tehran, efforts are now being made by Iran’s Supreme Ruler, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is slow down the pace of contemporary architecture by issuing criticisms against modern high rise structures as being “un Islamic” and not in accordance to religious fatwas or edicts.  Sustainability issues are not on the table.

According to an essay article written by Mojtaba Nafisi,  during Iran’s rich architectural history “the spatial layout of house design in Iran reflected the patriarchal structure of the society through the rigid segregation between private and public space, known in Persian architecture as the andaruni and biruni.”

Putting a veil on shameless and erotic buildings

This architectural concept has now been compromised, he writes, by more contemporary architectural designs which “are also considered erotic because, unlike the spatially introverted pre-modern architecture of Iran, faces outward with windows that shamelessly offer strangers a peek at the buildings’ private parts.”

Related: Khamenei won’t like these rotating rooms in Tehran!

Religious edicts or fatwas against modern building styles were published by Center for the Study of Science and Technology of the Islamic Iranian Architecture and Urban Planning, which is said to have close ties with the Supreme Ruler, who appears to prefer more traditional or Patriarcial building codes.

This doesn’t mean that Khameni is against all forms of modern innovations; as Nafisi says Khamenei “appears to like other Western innovations, from smoking pipes to ballistic missiles.”

Major efforts have been made to change architectural styling that was introduced during the reign of Iran’s last Shah, the late Reza Pahlavi. These include a number of buildings that were designed and constructed by large Israeli construction companies prior  to the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

One of these buildings, at Tehran’s international airport (see photo), was still reported to have Israel’s national emblem, the Star of David, still noticeable on the building’s roof.  This symbol, which has been described by Iranian media as a “symbol of evil”, lays evidence to cooperation between Israel and the Pahlavi regime, when airlines of Israel’s national carrier  El Al, made regular flights to and from Tehran and Tel Aviv.

Other Israeli structures include the former Tehran Hilton hotel, now called the Parsian Esteghlal International Hotel, and the Elkan Towers residential project (photo top).

Judging from the current political atmosphere, regarding the state of relations between these two countries, these remaining symbols of past Israeli – Iranian cooporation have undoubtedly  been a part of Khamenei’s “un-Islamic” building design thoughts as well.

More articles on Middle Eastern and Islamic architecture:
Extraordinary Fish Bowl Architecture Photos by Iran’s Mohammad Domiri
Dubai’s Skyscrappers are Cheap and Anonymous Says Architect Franky Gehry
Islam’s Environmentally Friendly Architecture – Where Did it Go?

Photo of Tehran Airport building -Google Earth:
Photo of Elkan Towers, by Sam Ibanaru/Haaretz

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Luca Curci architects studio presents Desert City, a project proposal for a sustainable way to live in the desert. It surely beats the maze of crazy unsustainable cities we see in regions in the United Arab Emirates, save for Masdar the zero energy city outside Abu Dhabi.

The architects say that their theoretical project was born from the interpretation of borders, conceived not only as a line which divides two places but, at the same time, as a meeting point between private and public space.

In these artistic sketches the architects from Italy envision a new kind of community, one based on new characteristics and social identities, a socioeconomic model aimed to cooperation and people participation.

In our world changing it’s important to imagine new paradigms when we build communities from scratch in deserts. Luca Curci Architects give us something to chew on and dream about. Pessimists might argue that we will have no choice.

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Just about every week UK-based and Iraq-born architect Zaha Hadid unveils new plans for eloquent but often outrageous skyscrapers and building projects around the world. The latest is a $420 million trio of skyscrapers for Brisbane, Australia, in her words, with “design [that] tapers each structure to minimise their footprint and open the riverfront to the public; creating a vibrant civic space for Toowong within a new riverside park.”

According to the developer, each of the three towers will have a multi-layered design with a glazed curtain wall with glass reinforced concrete. Called the Toowong development, the towers will include  486 apartments and eight “villas”

This result is feminine and organic, emulating organic forms like flower petals. Zaha Hadid has been criticized in the past for developing a stadium in Qatar that looks like female genitals.

The proposed building project would be located on land four kilometers west of Brisbane’s Central Business District, and will include parks space of about 7,300 meters.

The site has a poor environmental footprint. The area was occupied by Australia’s ABC Radio and after 17 women who worked there contracted breast cancer, the building was sold and vacated due to radiation levels. BY 2010 authorities declared the zone radiation free. The source of radiation appeared to from uranium.

As the Brisbane Times reported in 2008, “The site housed a uranium processing plant between 1911 and 1916, which produced products used to paint luminous clocks, watches and instrument dials.”

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Designed as additions to existing structures, which are likely neglected or disused, each of the five villas has a different shape that fits the topography for which they are envisioned.

Villa Minima #3 looks like a square caterpillar climbing up the side of a mountain, but it’s actually a 3D figure formed by six distorted parallelograms, a parallelepiped that has been shifted to balance on the rocky cliff.

Related: Simple wave house is a minimalist summer home in Turkey

Because the villa is an extension, it is kept small with no more than two bedrooms and a very simple interior. This one would be 1,615 square feet, if it were built, which is still relatively large for those of us who prioritize the smallest possible footprint.

There’s a master bedroom on one end of the villa, and the living room is on the other end – both of them frame different views of the surrounding landscape in Antalya – right on the edge of the Mediterranean Sea – to which the house has been adapted.

“All projects are based on the distortion of a simple geometric figure; each distortion is a device designed to correspond to a panoramic view from the interior space, framing nature and allowing for contemplation of the landscape,” writes LAD.

“This characteristic underlines the iconography of the projects: the dichotomy between nature and edifice.”

:: Designboom

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Digital animation “Walking Architecture” (clip above) pays homage to a 1960’s design group while pushing the boundaries of their conjectural vision.

UK-based multimedia studio Universal Everything developed a slowly evolving “video sculpture” that changes form, gradually morphing through an array of architectural structures that include geodesic domes, perforated lattices and pixilated building blocks.  Meanwhile, its core motion, the act of walking, remains constant.

Matt Pyke of Universal Everything based the animation, entitled Walking Architecture, on the futuristic imaginings of 1960s architectural group Archigram; they envisioned a city as a living organism whose purposely stride is undeterred by its changing size and form. The title of the video is a reference to Archigram’s “Walking City”.

The original project, conceived by British architect Ron Herron, imagined massive robotic structures, each with its own intelligence, freely walking to wherever their owners wanted or wherever their resources or manufacturing capabilities were needed.

Archigram envisioned an entire series of walking cities, interconnecting when need arose to form enormous walking metropolises, and then dispersing when their concentrated power had served its purpose. Individual buildings could also be mobile.

“The language of materials and patterns seen in radical architecture transform as the nomadic city walks endlessly, adapting to the environments she encounters,” said Pyke. (Note that he recognizes Architecture as female.)

This movie starts with a structure whose massing and proportions are similar to those of a human body.  Over the next seven minutes, it gradually abstracts, transforming into varied shapes that include a cluster of pixilated cubes and a striated mound.

The figure ultimately returns to its original form, poised to begin the transformation anew.

Unlike their contemporary Buckminster Fuller, who worked to build more with less material (recognizing that most matter is finite), Archigram’s fantastical designs assumed a future of limitless resources. Never constructed, their schemes stimulated others to incorporate aspects of their designs into real bricks-and-mortar structures.

Often, hypothetical architecture sparks innovation that catapults significant developments in building materials and technologies. Dream on.

All images from Universal Everything

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Roughly 80 percent of the one to four bedroom apartments on floors 19 through 108 of the Burj Khalifa are occupied.

A one bedroom apartment can cost as much as $55,000 to rent per year, but landlords of apartments at the “prestigious address” are also required to pay an annual maintenance fee that is used to ensure that common facilities remain in good working order.

Shared facilities and services include gyms, elevators, swimming pools, air-conditioning, and waste disposal services (however dubious they may be.)

“The service charges for residents go to the management and maintenance of the common areas, for the overall and long-term welfare of all residents,” an Emaar spokesman told The National.

Emaar charges owners of a four bedroom apartment up to $60,000 per year to perform these services, a sum that many landlords simply refuse to pay.

Unfortunately, threats to cut services to make the owners cough up their maintenance fees affect renters (who have mostly paid the money they owe) more than the landlords, who may not even live in the soaring 163 floor building. And then there are landlords who have paid their fees, who are punished for the misdeeds of others.

“It is unfair because this is not the tenants’ fault, they have paid their rent and it is not fair they suffer,” a landlord with more than 10 paid-for Burj properties told The National.

Although Emaar threatened to cut air conditioning and lift service over the weekend, they didn’t, because legally they can’t – according to a lawyer who spoke with The National.

“Owners and tenants cannot be legally prevented from entering their property,  Devanand Mahadev told the paper. “The building facilitator cannot shut down need-to-have facilities like electricity, water and access to the lifts.”  Only the service provider, in this case DEWA, has that ability.

While Emaar works out this dispute with owners who have not paid their fees, many residents will be denied access to luxury amenities; consequently, some have expressed a desire to seek new, more secure accommodation. 

:: The National

Burj Khalifa image / Shutterstock

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