Dozing; Architecture and the science of precise placement

Architecture and Urban planning sciences today, suffer from a gelatinous sort of thought overlay which devours the macro and micro contexts. Lack of concentration on the originality of ‘the real’, and the exact precise understanding to the problems directly at hand; cause an overconsumed type wrapping to ‘design’ in general. The Media has won with its glitz and glamor; as well, academic containment has won; won with its predestined and premeditated forms of both; the problems with their solutions. I am refusing for the moment to say ‘the end of architecture’ nor to admit to ‘ the end of design’….as with the recent tradition of ‘ends’ that started by Fukuyama’s ; ‘the end of History’. It is compelling though to admit that there are ends to everything; it might be helpful to rethink matters thus with an ingredient of urgency, with an orientation to the emergency, a revisiting to the essentials, to the origin materia prima in architecture and all related disciplines.

I will present a select project or two where the design process opens new channels to deal with the above mentioned as well as the present global context abundant with hallucinations.

Ahmad Hamid Cairo 23 September 2012.”

Following studies at Cairo University’s Faculty of Architectural Engineering, Ahmad Hamid began his professional career with Hassan Fathy, a pioneer architect in the international community. In 1984 he founded Ahmad Hamid Architects, a Cairo-based private interdisciplinary design office providing architectural services for residential and commercial projects, and public spaces, as well as product and furniture design. Furthering his own personal research into the indigenous art and architectural traditions of the Muslim World he then went on to pursue post-graduate studies in architectural history at the American University in Cairo, graduating with a Master’s Degree in Islamic Art and Architecture.
Hamid worked with Skidmore Owings and Merrill on the “World Trade Center Cairo,” and several international consultants designing “Sadat City,” and has also consulted in Germany, England, Switzerland, Malaysia, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Abu Dhabi. He has dealt with urban and rural projects alike, focusing on the development of context-appropriate, economically-sustainable solutions. He has designed several lines of contemporary furniture, objects, textiles and accessories, and uses photography to document his sources of inspiration, periodically exhibiting his photographs and architectural and design drawings, most recently, “The Architecture Shop: Character Studies; Works of Ahmad Hamid,” ( Cairo. 2008). He is the author of “Hassan Fathy .Continuity in Islamic art & architecture: The Birth of a New Modern “(2010).