Ramadan seminar: whose monument: participatory design project for monument-street buffer zones

About the Project:

A series of workshops, debates and meetings to discuss the relationship between the monument and the surrounding neighbourhood, the entities responsible for it and those with a vested interested in it or even those inconvenienced by it. We discuss who owns it, who protects it and improves it and who puts it at risk. The objective is to provide a environment of communication of the different view-points of the three main stakeholders: residents, government and civil society.

In participatory design all stakeholders are involved in the decision making process in all its details and stages. This is to narrow the gap between the monument and the community and allow it to assume ownership of the monument and to protect it through use.

This general issue is discussed through a specific case-study; the monument-street buffer zone and in a specific area; al-Khalifa Street between the mosque of Ahmad ibn Tulun and the shrine of al-Sayyida Nafisa.
About the Seminar:
After the first seminar in which the project idea was presented, three participatory research workshops were held with the participation of 55 representatives of the street residents, government officials and civil society. A number of issues were chosen for the extended participatory design workshop that will be held in September:
1. General needs assessment of the street particularly the garbage issue.
2. The need for raising awareness of the value of heritage particularly among children and youth. This led to the idea of reviving the children’s school in Gayer Anderson Museum in collaboration with the Built Environment Collective (Megawra)
3. Studies of the monument zones around Shajarat al-Durr Dome and Muhammad al-Anwar Mosque to rehabilitate for the service of the community in addition to their original value as monument and tourist destination.

These issues will be discussed in the seminar in the presence of relevant government officials, residents and representatives of civil society