Sequencing Organic Narrative For An Internodal City (S.O.N.I.C.)

The interesting part of doing this project was the fact that what began as a quick fix idea for "Ramses Square" wound up translating for us into a vision for entire Cairo. We began to feel that everything was inter related with everything else. So it was pointless to attack just one part of the chaos of the city.

The competition was challenging as the site was dealing with many issues ranging from history, noise pollution to lack of respect for pedestrians. The entire square was bifurcated to make way for the cars to get onto the existing 13th October highway{5000 cars bumper to bumper during rush hour}. The square was also home for about 150years to the worlds largest Ramses Statue. This statue was moved out of the square a few years ago as archeologists believe it was being damaged by the noise from the metro underneath and the honking of the cars. This in my opinion left Ramses Square without any identity.

Our proposal deals with transforming the existing city into a Sequence of Organic Narratives of an Inter-nodal City{SONIC}. We dealt with not only how to cater to all these issues but also to form a vision for the city of cairo. We implemented measures of pedestrian/bike routes along with strengthening the mass transit systems into an inter-nodal network. For the square itself we took the concept of sound to create its morphology. We planned for Transit Oriented Developments along the proposed new high speed rail corridor thereby generating real estate value for the rail {inspired by the high line}. We believed the rail would activate the peripheral regions of cairo city as well which at the moment have no infrastructure or value whatsoever. We believed that by shortening the time/distance ratio between the neighboring cities we would be able to generate more revenue for ramses square as we envisioned people traveling from north to south Egypt would make Ramses Square their central headquarters. We were focusing on providing Ramses square with a Global identity and it is when we found out that he Arab League has no formal address within the city. It lacks a presence within the city without an independent building or presence of any conference or convention centers. We envisioned Ramses Square could take on this role of a global entity and transform into a global diplomatic center much like the UN plaza, NYC. We also envisioned that the high speed rail would in time connect major urban global centers such as London and Dubai via Ramses Square.