March 10 - 16, 2018 | Borollos
Rediscovering Nile Delta: Hands on Earth & Reed
Nile Delta Workshop in collaboration with Natural Building Lab, TU Berlin
Egypt has a long history of traditional ways of construction with different local materials. This includes different types of mud bricks which are used in traditional construction techniques in different rural regions in Upper Egypt and Nile Delta. Other local materials are also available and could be tested and adapted for modern constructions.
This student-workshop discovers the building tradition of the Nile Delta, through a design-build experiment at “El Shakhlouba” village by Borollos lake. This lake is one of Egypt’s most gorgeous natural travel destinations and one of Egypt’s rare natural protectorates, though not mentioned on the touristic map. The area is rich with natural building materials (e.g. mud, reed) that are neglected nowadays whereas the built environment has been changed to concrete constructions. The workshop tries to answer: How to build “today” by modified traditional building techniques depending on local materials?
The student-workshop includes a public lecture entitled: Creating Natural Change – Transforming Natural Building Tradition, by Prof. Eike Roswag - Klinge (Aghakhan Prize winner 2007), the Chair of Natural Building Lab at TU Berlin. One of the main focuses of this Lab is designing and building environment-friendly buildings made of natural resources. The Lab is developing its projects in collaboration with the society mostly as design - build projects.
The student-workshop is in collaboration between Habitat Unit – International Urbanism and Design and the Natural Building Lab of Technical University Berlin and Architecture Department, Faculty of Fine Arts of Helwan University. Several lectures will include introductions to natural materials, low-tech buildings; and self-build constructions.