the cairo project

| G1Inhabiting theInform

al City:Cairo Zabbaleen

2011-2012

Project Partners

Umeå School of Architecture

Unesco

The Locus Foundation

Local Project Partners

Coptic Church

Institut Français

Environmental Quality International - EQI

Association for the Protection of the Environment - API

Faculty

Mette HarderJana Revedin

Sepideh KaramiAlberto Altés

Mark OchelRoemer van Toorn

Ellen Skånberg

Student Group

Jacob EverhedNathalie Jonsson

Emili Norén Karin Olsson

Sofi a SjölinJohan Uddén

Project Report

Group report of the process and outcome of the 5th term Bachelor at UMA as developed during the

Autumn term of the 2011-2012 academic yearin and around the case study of

Cairo’s Garbage City - Zabbaleen.

Umeå School of Architecture, Umeå University - 2011-2012

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2011-2012

chapter 1 - M2 - Case Study - Zabaleen | 1A - Public Space in the Megalopolis | 1B - Hard Mapping | 1C - Soft Mapping | 1D - Relations

chapter 2 - Theory Course - Catching the Multitude where it is at workchapter 3 - M3 - Refl ection, Analysis and Programchapter 4 - Planning Coursechapter 5 - M4 - Strategic Interventionchapter 6 - Theory Course - Textchapter 7 - History Course

Table of Contents

Case Study: Cairo Zabbaleen . M2 | 1

Jacob Everhed/Nathalie Jonsson/Emili Norén/Karin Olsson/Sofi a Sjölin/Johan Uddén

Cairo Contested: Making or Shaking the StateUrban boundaries of state control and popular appropriation in Sayyida Zaynab Model Park

The Egyptian architect Abdel Halim won in 1982 the competition for designing the new Cultural Park for Children in Cairo. The history of this park, from the planning process to the current use, is a struggle between the architect’s ambi-tions of a united community and the authority’s need of control.

One might say it’s a history about the government’s lack of reliance to its people, and how good intentions can end up in a question about power and what is really common or not.

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. CASE STUDY: CAIRO ZABBALEEN . M2 . PUBLIC SPACE IN THE MEGALOPOLIS . 1A 1_A

The construction of the park began in 1987, andthe opening ceremony was held in November1990. What was supposed to be a cheerful celebration ended in chaos when children climbed the wall and the guards responded with violence.

The Ministry of Culture’s need to control conti-nued and the gates towards the alley neveropened. The result of further regulations madethe park only accessible to wealthy kids. The disappointment from the locals made criminali-ty and gangs rise in the alley.The Ministry of Culture response to the criticwas that the park failed to fulfi ll its security requirements, and the community felt like the park “turned its back” to its members.

Abdel Halim started the Abu al-Dahab Group(ADG) to manage, control and maintain thestreet and the locals started their own workshops and activities that lead into a “street festival”.Abdel Halim and the ADG hoped that thischange of the alley would show the Ministryof Culture the intense form of collectiveproductive area in the community and hoped toconvince the state that the local community wascapable of creating these spaces, and thereforethe park should open up to the alley – as initially planned.

Instead, spikes have been attached to the wall toprevent people from climbing in and the gatesstill remains sealed to the alley.

Cairo Contested:governance, urban space and global modernity

Making or Shaking the State-Urban boundaries of state control and popularappropriation in Sayyida Zaynab Model Park

author: Khaled AdhamCairo : New York : American University in Cairo Press [2009]


The site for the park was set to the historicalgarden of al-Hud al-Marsud; an oasis of thepast that transformed into a wasteland of drugdealing and criminality. With locating the newnational Culture Park for Children in the area,the Ministry of Culture, hoped to organize thecommunity and infl uence the public culture ofthe inhabitants.

In the park program for the competition, the re-gulation measurements for the surrounding wallwas already set to 3 meters and made of brick,to control vandalism and enable the institutioncontrol the boundary to the community. AbdelHalim was of the opinion that a clear borderlike a solid brick wall would be of no good forthe neighboring area relations. His aim was instead to:

“produce a design where the barrier issmart and sensitive enough to the issues ofcommunity.”

To achieve this he thought of a design wherethe barrier itself was the link between the com-munity and the park. He designed thick wallswhere he imagined various activities to be placed, each with double openings – one towardsthe park and the other to the alley on the otherside. He also extended his design into the alleywhere he created a structure of stair-like levels,to prevent car traffi c and make the alley corre-late to the park interior, making the border lesssignifi cant.

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Jacob Everhed/Nathalie Jonsson/Emili Norén/Karin Olsson/Sofi a Sjölin/Johan Uddén 2011-2012

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Initial thoughts on ZabbaleenMapping of functions


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Zabbaleen:Hard Mapping

The hard mapping can be seen as an introduction to our site. We use the week to get to know our street throughout many aspects to get a general idea about what this place was about. Collecting data about activity, traffi c, aesthetics, relations and his-tory we found that our street, locate parallel to the main street, is a relatively quiet with a lot of plastic and paper industry mixed with shops, barbers and a breakfast restaurant.

The work is often located on the ground fl oor in the dwelling houses and also partly out on the streets. The garbage is storage both on the street and inside people’s homes. The street has become more densi-fi ed during the lastdecades and is now expanding vertically.

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. CASE STUDY: CAIRO ZABBALEEN . M2 . HARD MAPPING . 1B 1_B


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SECTION B-B

SECTION A-APLAN


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Zabbaleen:Soft Mapping

The soft mapping started off in a discussion about Zabaleen as a locked capitalist system where the profi t desperation surpasses the social responsibility and sense of community.

The business competition excludes the social rela-tionships. These notions lead to an investigation about values and priorities.

VALUES:Values can be defi ned as broad preferences concerning appropriate courses of actions or outcomes. As such, values refl ect a persons sense of right and wrong. Va-lues tend to infl uence attitude and behavior.

CAPITALISM:Capitalism is an economic system in which the means of production are privately owned and operated for profi t, usually in a competative market.

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. CASE STUDY: CAIRO ZABBALEEN . M2 . SOFT MAPPING . 1C 1_C


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The presence of each value in the households we investigated.

The bigger the circle, the more im-portance a certain value has.Depending on where the value is placed in the diagram there is a re-lationship between the geographi-cal placement and the importance it has.


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. CASE STUDY: CAIRO ZABBALEEN . M2 . RELATIONS . 1D 1_D

Target:Finding incentives for positive change in Moqattam Village, by better understanding the Zabaleen’s Value System. By values we mean; Principles or standards of behaviour; one’s judgement of what is important in life. As such, values refl ect a person’s sense of right and wrong and infl uence his/her attitude and behavior.

Our methods for investigating this value system have mainly consisted of interviews and graphical test, where people in the community have ranked aspects against each other in order of importance and enjoyment.

The two fi nal coordinate systems with all the categories so that you can see how they relate to each other.

All the answers we got is assembled and made into an average dot. One for each cate-gory with a colored fi eld showing the spread of all answers within that category.


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Question for investigation

The garbage economy has trapped the people in their current situation. Many of the inhabitants works for

a daily wage which puts them in a vulnerable situation.

Most of the people we interviewed expressed a will to transform their situation but they seem to be unaware

that the change has to come from within. In order to change, they have to change. The village has a lot of tra-

ditions, with its origins in Upper Egypt, that limits the possibilities of developement. But the people does not

only seem to be restricted in their traditions and their culture but also in their way of approaching difficulties.

By introduce a new kind of activity, diconnected to the garbage economy, can one expose the positive

sides of collaboration and trigger creative thinking that can kick-start the process of transformation that

the people living in Mokattam is in great need of?

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QUESTION FOR INVESTIGATION 1_F. CASE STUDY: CAIRO ZABBALEEN . M2

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QUESTION FOR INVESTIGATION 1_F. CASE STUDY: CAIRO ZABBALEEN . M2

Can the intervention kick-start the process of getting the to wheel spinn? It is much easier to bike ones the wheel in spinning. By exposing the intervention in the streets of

Mokattan can one trigger a riple effect that can inspire the people to keep on pushin the pedals?

Strategic intervention|M4 3

The Marimba Project. The idea of the project is to introduce an activitiy which can stimulate creative thinking and encoura-ge the inhabitants to explore new fields. To introduce such an activity which, at least in a short term perspective, has nothing to do with the improvement of ones economic situation seems to be quiet difficult. No profits equals no interest. By exposing the activity in the chaotic streetscape one might be able to reach people that, for different reasons, would not participate or notice it otherwise. The Marimba project is about the creation of sounds and how that can stimulate creativity and trans-form into a collective investigation of the art of collaboration. Even though music can be played alone, it can create connections to other people interested inthe same or similar field. Music collects people of all ages. It is a very seductive tool in that sense that it raises curiosity and starts an exploration process, that we think is needed in the settlement, without being too radical and too offensive. And above all, music is a lot of fun and can triggers the mind.

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1_YSTRATEGIC INTERVENTION M4.

Emili Norén & Sara Zetterlund

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How to introduce music in the Mokattam vi-llage? The strategy to introduce music within the Mokattam setllement is to focus on the chil-dren. Kids are curios and eager to try out new things. They have not yet reached the age where activities becomes unappropriate in the same sense as for the adults. The kids are the future.

The purpose of the project is not only to create a playground for the kids to stimulate creative thinking but also to create a tool for teaching the kids how to read and to count. Being located in the middle of two schools and one kindergarden offers opportunities to use the structure as a classroom for pedago-gical teaching. The method of using music as a tool for teaching the children is aldready an etasblished method in the kindergardens in Mokattam Settlement.

The marimba is an instument made of woo-den pieces which you hit with a stick. The ins-trument is played preferrable in a great num-ber of people, which can teach the kids how to collaborate in a larger group. The marimba can also be used as a tool for teaching reading and counting. By using intruments which can be hit by a stick or a hand one can avoid haing the troub-ble of hitting the bad notes. It is impossible to play wrong.

By attaching numbers or letters on the ins-trument, the kids can start of by playing their name in letters, then by playng a famous song by numbers and finally writing their own songs.

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Describing the siteThe chosen site is located in the middle of a gils school, a kindergarted and a private school. The project sits on the border between the calm park area and the chaotic street. The structure climbs over the 3 meter high wall, creating a connection between the two sides. The park was, some years ago, a composting plant but at the moment a large part of the park remains unused, exept for some plants. The upper part is uses by the kids of the kin-

dergarten which is situated in the park area. The street side of the structure is a junction of three bigger streets. The trafic situation in this area is not as chaotic as in the rest of Mokattam settlement. But occupying space from the still very busy streets in not an option. Therefore the structure hangs over the wall, without interferring the ground of the street. Instead, the structure has its base on the park-side where the atmomsphere is a lot calmer. As shown in the large picture above the-

re is a small hill at the end of the street which create a theater like situation. The surrounding houses, with its balconies offers a goog view for those hwo can-not leave the house for different reasons.

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The program of the structure

The structure constists of two main parts; the instru-mental area (blue) and the pedagogical area (yellow). The instrumental area connects the park with the street by its foldable stairs. The pedagogical area is placed in the park side in order to escape visual contact with the street but also for a acustical reasons.

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Marimba instrument in scale 1:1An important aspect of the project is the transformation of ordinary material into something spectacular. By using your creativity and collecting knowledge from inventative people you could build instruments from almost any material, without being an expert. In order to investigate the potential of sound in diffe-rent materals we tried out some examples in scale 1:1. The small Marimba consists of a frame that the strings are atta-ched to which the bars rest on. The bars of wood is cut out in

the middle with different diameters of circles. This affects the sound. By being presize you can tune the Marimba. Both the material of the bars, prefarable hard wood as birch, and the dimensions in thickness and lenght affects the sound outcome. Underneath the bars sits a resonance box which ampli-fies the sound. The most common way to create renonators is to use plastic or alluminium pipes which resonates the sound of each bar. This method demands much more pre-sicion than the box but creates a more powerful sound.

To hit the bars you could use practically everything but the hardness of the sticks affects the sound. Softer mallettas, as they are called, works better with the smaller bars, while the bigger bars could be hit with both soft and hard ones. The reason for working with the Marimba instrument is because the instument is easy to play and impossible to hit a bad note.

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The plastic pipe instrument in scale 1:1 The pipes are creating some of the railings in the structure. This instrument is made out of plastic pipes approximately 1 to 2 meter long, but the longer pipes the deeper the sound. The pipes are cut in variating lengths which creates different tones.

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The cajon drum in scale 1:2

In the structure the drum is used as steps in the stair. The idea is that by just running up the stair you create music. The wooden box consist of five sides of 150 mm thick plywood. The upper part is made out of 5 mm thick plywood and is attached with screws to the rest of the box. On the opposite side a hole is cut

out in order to create a better resonance. Different resonance depending on the top material and the size of the box creates different sounds. The drum boxes can also be used as seatings. By tipping the box a bit one can create different sounds by hitting the different sides.

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The marimba is the main instrument as well as the pedagogical tool. Integrated within the structure are drums, guitar strings and plastic pipes. The drums are creating the stairs and the seatings, the pipes and the strings the railings. These elements are made both to show them different, simple ways to create musical instruments, but also trigger creativity and curiosity in creating sounds. Just by walking in the stair you are part of the music making.

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Scenarios 1: School class The structure is made to be used in different ways depending on the activity taking place. The pedagogical area works both as a classroom for teaching the kids the instrument during school hours but also as a “back stage” situation while perfor-mances are taking place in the evenings. The Pedagogical part of the structure is located in the park, where the 3 meter high wall prevents sounds from the street to disturb the lessons. Before starting the class the children gathers in the

pedagogical part inside the park side where the techer can co through the instrumnets. After that a smaller group of kids can walk upstairs into the main instrument space to try out themsel-ves, while the rest of the class continues the lesson downstairs.

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Scenario 2. Concert

The structure can be used as a concert hall for performances. The-se occasions can be held during the evenings where the traffic os not as busy as usual. The structure can be lit by colorful lamps to contrast the concert situations from the pedagogical situations. The concerts can be view from the street and the park but also from the balconies, for women that are not aloud to leave their home.

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Scenarion 3: Sundays During sundays, when almost everybody is off, the structure will be held open for the public to try out the instruments.This is a important part of the project. By focusing on the kids you might also be able to reach their parents. Music is an ageless activity and a very effective way to raise curiosity since the sound can travel far.

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the cairo project

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