Informal identity, transformation and diagrammatic processes
Cairo
Master degree's thesis
AWARDS:
-Best thesis degree prize 2014, Architect class, P.P.C. Milan 
- Degree announcement "Michele SilverS", Italian's school architectural projects in international contests, Politecnico di Milano
 

The purpose of this project was to analyze the urban reality of the city of Cairo, and subsequently, to design and to reason about a rational method for acting on a theme such as the "informal city". I analyzed, proceeding more and more specifically up to reach an architectural scale, the shapes of the territory both at a geomorphological and  urban level, identifying the lines and the main directions with the aim of finding a method for inserting a fitting design, and, at the same time , which can self-develop/adjust in the future. The work was done by analyzing each layer composing the urban fabric of Cairo (gray, urban, green, blue) and, working on it in a "matrix" form, I have taken from each of them, proceeding in scale, lines and form more and more specific and delineated. The next step led to the rationalization of the system, until the discovery of a grid that was suited to the informal area taken into account. It is, in effect, a structure partly self-constructive and partly built-capable, offering all the services of welfare which are not usually present in an informal reality, and which also acts as containment for a possible unregulated expansion. Sometimes provocatively, it becomes part of a structural system rooted in the ground and completely emptied, which goes on outlining a glimpse of "landscapes"; it gives value to the city and allows a spontaneous design by the "abusive" citizen of Cairo. In a more pragmatic sense, from the central hub of the area under consideration, a real structure arises and evolves creating a building. This one is structured on several levels that become part of the soil, going also underground, marking its eternal presence. The guidelines of each plan follow the same grid obtained from the previously "matrix" analysis, and the functions contained within, corresponds to all those a city would need: the market, the "souk" (which is on one of the most significant symbols of the reality of Cairo), a school structure, with all the related services and a museum center.