Debating Informality discussion

About the Guests

Omar Nagati: Co-Founder of CLUSTER (Cairo Lab for Urban Studies, Training and Environmental Research) a platform for urban research, architecture, art, and design initiatives based in Downtown Cairo. Omar is a practicing architect/urban planner with over 25 years of experience working in Cairo. He has been the recipient of a number of honors and awards, including representing Egypt in the 6th Architectural Design Exhibition, Venice Biennale. A graduate of Cairo University, he studied at the University of British Columbia, Canada, and University of California, Berkeley, and taught at a number of local and international universities, most recently as a Visiting Professor at the University of Sheffield, UK. Nagati adopts an interdisciplinary approach to questions of urban history and design, with a specific focus on informal urbanism. Nagati is a co-author of numerous printed and online publications and research papers, including Archiving the City in Flux (2013), Street Vendors Initiatives and the Contestation of Public Space (2017), and Grounded Urban Practices (2019). clustercairo.org

Ramy Bakir: has received his BSc, MSc, and PhD degrees from Ain Shams University (ASU), Cairo, Egypt. He is currently Co-founder and General Manager at ASAS, and is also Assistant Professor at the Department of Architectural Engineering and Environmental Design at the Arab Academy for Science and Technology (AAST), Cairo, Egypt. Throughout his 18 years of practicing and teaching design he has won 4 local and international design awards, and contributed to many design projects in Egypt and the Middle East Region by collaborating with many engineering consultancies. He managed more than 100 projects as Design Principal at the ASAS; the Egyptian based design firm which he cofounded in 2009. He has also instructed 5 courses where he experimented with students in design, building and presenting creative and innovative ideas. He has conducted several empirical studies and has published several articles and papers focusing on the situated design process in architectural practice and pedagogy.

Talk's Recording

The Recorded Discussion

About the Discussion

We started off the discussion with an introduction and a brief lecture on informal settlements by Arch. Omar. That lecture led to the question of how our role as architects affects informal settlements and how a form of selfishness that we subconsciously obtain diverts us from the reality and understanding it. A contrast was then observed: how a city defines itself, and how/ where people actually live. After some back and forth comments, We concluded with Dr. Ramy's comments on stereotyping, how education should help that and how we should have a grounded understanding of informality, the needs of the people, and resolving the conflict between what's good for them versus our perception and understanding of their needs.