id50 2025 – Waleed Arafa

Can you let us know about the latest exciting projects that you are working on?

In 2024 our first project in Europe; La Maison d’Egypte, a students residence in the International University City, Paris, France was officially opened and received its first residents. We also celebrated the success of our architectural installation in the historic Cairo Citadel, titled Seat of Design Power, as well as the design of the exhibition titled Urban Spaces of Cairo, a collaboration with Ramzi Makram-Ebeid of Human Nature, at the Grand Egyptian Museum, as part of the World Urban Forum and UN Habitat.

A few projects moved from the drawing boards to construction sites on a few projects, such as our first project in Historical Cairo, the Darb al-Labanna Cultural Center, across the street from Hassan Fathy’s house. A masterplan and architectural design for an indoors and outdoors art gallery overlooking the pyramid of Sakkara and the pyramids of Abu Sir, a resort in Siwa, a social and sporting club for a multi-national in the west of Cairo, a private resort to the south of Riyadh near al-Muzahimyya. We are in design phase for a couple of mosques in Bahrain, an Islamic Cultural Complex in east of Cairo, an educational/administrative building in Aswan and a high-rise overlooking the Nile in Cairo and a housing project in Sohag, in the south of Egypt amongst other things that cannot be disclosed at the moment.

La Maison d’Egypte

Please mention some of your proudest achievements as a firm (Top 3)

We have been awarded, shortlisted and nominated a total of 20 international architectural awards for our our design and build project, Basuna Mosque and Community Center, the last of which was in 2024, despite of the mosque having been completed and in full use since 2019. Three different projects of ours have been nominated for Aga Khan Award for Architecture in three different cycles.

We have been capable to offer paid internships to over 60 Egyptian and international young architects and students of architecture, as well as lecture and participate in educational workshops with more than 15 different universities across the Middle-East.

Can you talk about a type of project that you would like to take on in 2025 that would interest you and your team to pursue (dream project that you would like to manifest)?

We would like to further revisit and perhaps redefine educational buildings, especially early-age facilities and schools and combining this design challenge with other explorations in the world of earth construction techniques, Green architecture and building economics.

How would you describe your ‘house style’ and design philosophy?

Dar Arafa Architecture is a design-build studio, focused on tracing and reviving the Egyptian, Arab and Islamic chains of transmission in the field of architecture and building guilds. It is our aim to participate in writing a new original chapter without negating our rich and successful architectural heritage.

We are aware that “Islamic architecture”, is a controversial term used to refer to a huge and apparently different array of buildings across the globe. The sorting out of this controversy, has the potential of realigning and reorienting contemporary architecture and building construction towards a more sensitive and sustainable state; in-tune with our critical and impending energy and raw material crisis alongside our present-day problems, necessities, and the world’s existential crisis. We highly believe in the uniqueness of local contexts, as well as a common architectural essence that is capable of transcending time and space. It is our belief, that studying the past is of utmost importance, to avoid blind imitation, duplicating mistakes, consequently ushering in an original future of architecture. DAA combines scholarly research with design-build, hands-on practice, aiming at finding ways to continuing the discontinued architectural past of countries with an established legacy in the architecture of Islam, such as Egypt and the Arab world. But equally, looking into how to bring forth new architecture(s) of Islam in completely new contexts such as the Occident at large.

As this is the power issue, what empowers you and your team?

Observing our designs, after having been constructed and in-use, finding out that our design research, assumptions and decisions were generally accurate and are now efficiently and pleasantly serving the people and communities they were design and built for. We are also empowered by our mistakes; they make us eager to further improve with every new project.

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