The informal settlements of Cairo : a holistic concept

Cairo, the largest city in Africa, a home of 20 million people, representing the main engine of Egypt, faced and still facing a lot of challenges slackening its progress towards a modern self-sufficient country. Many people had immigrated to the metropolis in the sake of finding better life, leading to an eruption in the population, causing unplanned urbanization advance, turning agricultural fields and tombs into homes and shelters. The Agricultural eminence of the nation, which was famous for many centuries is now fading away, caused by arrogant human planning leading to informal built environments to be erected, excavating the nature of the land and erasing its identity effecting negatively on the community and on the whole ecological system. Ancient Egyptians “are credited as being one of the first groups of people to practice agriculture on a large scale”. This Relationship with the land is vanishing, increasing barriers for future generations to live a healthy life. Here, an urban vision is being proposed following the permaculture ethics, Return of the surplus through waste recycling management, Care for Earth through recovering back the lost agricultural essence and Care for people socially by relocating tomb inhabitants to an affordable sustainable dwellings and economically by creating new sources of jobs and income through hydroponics. The scope of ecology is huge, and it encompasses all organisms living on Earth and their physical and chemical surroundings. The proposed perception aims in enhancing and improving the existing ecological system as a whole of Greater Cairo by providing a prototypes of architectural solutions, along with an humanizing the informal dwellings inhabitants. To render the vision logically, an ecological path is being proposed in one section of Greater Cairo, as a prototype that can be duplicated towards the rest of the metropolis. The path will integete existing greenery with the informal settlements, creating a sustainable urban fabric, recovering the ecological valye and enhancing the self community essence. In other words, It’s a city manual presenting prototypes of ideas that will be rendered in several ways. The essence of art and agriculture will be merged producing an ecological design solutions, connecting architects, artists, engineers, farmers and garbage collectors in structuring a community concept in protecting and multiplying the ecosystem values, serving the inhabitants and protecting the nature.