A City of Need
Mansheyiat Naser, Cairo, Egypt
Mokattam Mountain Hazardous Cliffs Stabilization
School: Design School at ASU
Program: MArch
Year:2013
Project type: Individual Capstone Project
Provides new infrastructure, solving economical and social problems, while embracing but improving the current live/recycle system of the sustainable Garbage city.
In the center of Cairo, Egypt, stands Mansheyiat Naser the biggest Informal settlement in Cairo, on three diferent levels of Mokattam Mountain, beneath hazardous mountain cliffs that are in risk of falling. The area is the home of approximate one million people. The upper level of Mokattam is an Informal recycling settlement that recycles 3000 tons of material per day. The settlement lacks a formal infrastructure, fresh water and sewage. The area is physically and socially isolated from the rest of the city, disconnected from the major circulation of the city except of few points. Manshiyat Naser settlement is facing many issues and problems most importantly the hazardous cliffs that create a potential for a disaster that could happen at any time. The settlement is also facing other major issue like poverty, high unemployment rates, poor education and health services, and illiteracy.
The aim of this project is to stabilize the Mokattam mountain cliffs to eliminate the danger of people dying in their own home. In this project the mountain cliffs stabilization strategy and technique is designed to multi function and integrate solutions to solve a number of the other major issues the settlement is facing. A holistic design approach that integrates urban, landscape and architecture design in one system, a decentralized system of nodes located along the clif lines connect by linear circulation. T e system maximize the benef t of the project, allows the stabilization of the clif s to help solve economical and social problems of the settlement and create a new infrastructure for a long term sustainable solution approach.
