Student Portfolio
ARCH 473/3522 D I G I TA L D E S I G N S T U D I O A N D W O R K S H O P Kareem M. Kabil - 900152496 Spring 2020
The American University in Cairo (AUC) School of Sciences and Engineering - Department of Architecture ARCH 473/3522 - Digital Design Studio and Workshop (Spring 2019) Student portfolio documenting samples of work submitted along the course, including research, experimentation, 3D modeling, digital fabrication, parametric design and modeling, physical model realisation and analysis. Student name: Kareem M. Kabil Student ID: 900 15 24 96
Š The American University in Cairo (AUC), May 2019
Personal Background Kareem M. Kabil Architecture Student - Senior
I am Kareem, a Senior in AUC’s Architectural Engineering Program. I was born in Charleston, SC and was where I lived for about five years. I later moved back to Egypt, where I am originally from and where parents were born and raised. I lived there for about five more years and later moved to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and that was where i got my high school diploma. I can’t really say I am fond of one places over another, but Egypt to me, being my homeland and where my family lives, has a sentimental value to me. Throughout my childhood it was all about arts and
crafts. I self-taught myself the art of caricature and cartoon drawing, which to a point in life got me to places where at a point I used to publish childrens’ coloring books but on a small scale. I am also very fond of music, and not your everyday mainstream music but one that a cultural value behind it. Growing up and experiencing alot of relatively distant cultures and traditions based on where I lived, I started developing this critical thinking and deep analyzing of people, their needs and wants and their priorities in life. And that was pretty much when I came to the realization of Architecture “The Humanaterian Science” if you would say. That being said, I always tried to reflect upon that in almost every architectural project I designed, where my main goal was not only to have a human-aware design but also to try and develop design approaches where the “human” him/ herself would engage psychologically and physically with architecture. Finally, I am currently enrolled my first every parametric-based design course/workshop. And to say that I fully understand such a new and innovative ways of design and fabrication process would be an underestimating to parametric deisgns. But what I am sure of is that, Parametric and Robotic fabrication techniques elevated and redefined the lost bond between humans and machines. In a world
Studies show that homelessness in Egypt is an alarming social issue that is currently affecting more than 12 million people nationwide, including around 3 million street children according to UNICEF and the National Center for Social and Criminological Research in Egypt. In this project, we were required to design a mobile shelter for the homeless. We were also encouraged to develop several alternatives and design ideas as part of our preliminary search for a language of formal expression that responds to basic aesthetic and functional requirements. In this project, We were required to develop an in-depth inquiry into inspirations from nature as a driver for our designs. More specifically, we were required to observe the phenomenon of growth in nature as a source of inspiration.
01 Project 01 - Homeless Shelter
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Project Location Menya, Egypt
The Homeless Shelter Project was set to be designed and conducted in El-Menya, Egypt. El Menya, being part of the upper Egypt governates, suffers from the high percentages of homlessness that is a result of low quality and opportunities of education. Nevertheless, homeless people in El-Menya suffer from being vulnerable to the high temperatures in the area due to low sky coverage and high tempratures throughout the year. An intervention of the mobile homeless shelter had to be designed to meet the basic human needs and the cultural requirements set by these people.
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4 The main natural inspiration representing the growth process was the tortoise, and more specifically I focused on the growth process and the movement mechanism of its shell. Made of overlapping scutes, the tortoise’s shell was found to be very flexible, allowing movement both vertical and horizontal, something that i personally found to be very interesting and could build a general idea of the mobile shelter on. Not to have taken its direct form as an inspiration, i had to formulate another definition and form a pattern and let the form be produced generically. Nevertheless, i also had to focus on the functionality and sturctural parameters behind my design.
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7 The formulation of a single panel (shell) and the development of movement parameters in both the X and Y directions. This also allows for the felexibilty of the structure in assembling and de-assembling, and allowing it form in response to the user’s needs.
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02 Project 02.1 - Fabric Fomring Experimentation
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Experimentation - 01 This experiment was solely conducted to test the effect of applying different pull points scattered on a surface and how they would affect the geometry of the final shape. Another aesthetic aim was to test the texture of the fabric used oresented on the surface of the form. Something that can be applied in real life and be used to our environmental benefit.
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Experimentation - 02 In this experiment I wanted to test the effect of applying different curvatures that would represent different equations and graphs in a grasshopper environment and see the effect of a range of different slopes on the formwork and the final outcome.
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Derived Parameters The derived parameters of motion were the use of material that would sustain loads and forces acting on it, and finally the quatntity of the attractor points and their pull. While moving and testing the different points and how ittirating between their positions affect the model, I realized that with horizontal and vertical displacement of the attractor points we can drive a harmonious curvature. This is basically converting a 2-dimensional movement to a 3-dimensional on.
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02 Project 02.2 - Parametric Facelifting
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Blom Bank New Cairo
This project’s intent was to use the parameters of fabric forming that we derived from the first phase of project and use it to design and facelift the Blom Bank building facade.
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Conceptual Approach - Site Location - Behavioral Analysis - Explanatory Sketches
Design Parameters - Grasshopper Attempt 1 - Grasshopper Attempt 2 - Grasshopper Attempt 3 - RHINO Model
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Site Location Located in the south 90th rd, New Cairo, Blom Bank is in a strategic location and acting as a attractor point for the people of New Cairo. However, its south and main facade is exposded to direct sunlight with very low sky coverage throughout the year. Studying the wind analysis, we also see that the main wind directions are NNW and N, with temprature ranging from hot to warm. All of these factor needed to be environmentally resolved to fit the climatic conditions it lies within,
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Behavioral Analysis With office buildings such as blom bank in our case, they tend to establish a certain heirarchy of privacy and more confined entry as one goes up the floors. This is mainly done to allow the ease of access to most people in the bottom floor and the higher you the more privatized it gets.
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Explanatory Sketches As stated before this was a perliminary sketch that represents my vision towards producing a kinntic shading element that would both shade from direct sunlight and also act as a wind catcher due to its dynamic curvature. This Louver-based shading element that would facelift our building would act based on the human interactions per floor and also based on the sun’s angles
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Grasshopper Attempt 01 In this attempt i only aimed to test the curvature being made according randomized iterations with no human or sun based parameters.
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Grasshopper Attempt 02 Here i only tested for the human interactions positions per floor. At this stages i went deeper into conducting grasshopper definitions and actually applied what learnt to fit my design on the face of the building
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1. The division of the panels through using brep to divide the facade and isotriming it 2. The human based interaction per floor of the building
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3. Producing a rotational axis for the louvers around their connection line to the building facade
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4. Finally applying the responsive rotational movement and linking it the human location per floor
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Grasshopper Attempt 03 Here another and final parameter was added and that was producing circular openings that with different iterations have different radii to have a direct respone to the sun angle
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Grasshopper Definition
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