Habitat Unit

Open Call | Winter School in Cairo, Egypt | October & November 2024

Building Resilient Cities
Collaborative Design for Refugee Women and Children with Local Communities in Cairo

October 27th – November 2nd 2024

As a cooperation between Habitat Unit – TU-Berlin and the Department of Architecture and Urban Design at the German University in Cairo (GUC), we warmly invite students from the fields of architecture, urban design, urban planning, landscape architecture and other fields to join our 7 days hands-on design workshop funded by DAAD in Cairo, Egypt: Building Resilient Cities: Collaborative Design for Refugee Women and Children with Local Communities in Cairo. Applicants must be enrolled at TU-Berlin. 


Photo: © Ashraf Osam

The Winter School in Cairo is developed in collaboration with the local organizations Future Hopes Community Foundation, MasahitAlhayy, Studio 39 and 10 Tooba, and will happen in the neighborhood of Boulaq. The objective of the workshop is to collaboratively design and build with Sundanese refugees, thinking together about possibilities of improving urban space and enhancing inclusiveness and resilience in the area. Together with the students and local actors, design solutions will be developed, tested and built, as knowledge-based products where new scientific notions such as “Dual Design Strategy” and designing with refugees will be explored. 

The workshop is preceded by a 3-days online Symposium that will provide participants with deeper theoretical inputs and reflections related to the topic. The inputs will be given by invited guests from different fields of studies working on the topics of displacement and community participation.

Overall, the Winter School seeks to intensify academic collaboration, especially in the field of Forced Migration between GUC and TU Berlin, and to develop new tools for community design that could be applicable for both contexts, and eventually, raise awareness of the participants towards the need to design and build inclusive cities and neighborhoods for refugees and citizens alike.

Download poster here.

Course Information+

Funding
The workshop is supported by DAAD and students will receive funding for travel costs from Berlin to Cairo, accommodation, and daily expenses.
Please notice that the funding is in the form of reimbursement and will be paid after the workshop is concluded. Keep in mind that the procedure of reimbursement can take several weeks. Please only apply if you are able to meet these conditions.
Participation in all activities of the workshop is required to receive the funding. 

Program
The workshop in Cairo will be preceded by a 3-day online Symposium, with theoretical inputs and discussions among the participants.

Phase 1: Online Symposium
Sep 30th , Oct 3rd , Oct 7th – Preparation and  Joint Problem Definition
*the duration of the online events will be of 3 hours per day and the time will be later announced. 

Phase 2: Workshop in Cairo
Oct 27th to Nov 2nd –  Development and knowledge exchange

Phase 3: Workshop in Berlin
Dec 7th – Reflection and Transferability

How to Join?
The application deadline is on September 13th. The applications must include your CV and be submitted through the formular here: https://forms.gle/6YfoNUeSp2fzZRjp6.
The results will be announced by September 16th.

Contact
Project coordinator: Dr. Juliana Canedo, Technische Universität Berlin
Project cooperation partner: Dr. Ayham Dalal, German University in Cairo