Habitat Unit

Researcher

Hellen Aziz

 
 
Room: A621
 
Curriculum Vitae
 
Hellen Aziz has been a research assistant at the Habitat Unit since September 2023. She studied architecture at Mansoura University in Egypt. In 2021, she completed her master’s degree at the Urban Development Department, TU Berlin El Gouna, writing her thesis titled “Towards Good Governance for Street Markets in Egypt: Case Studies, Benchmarks, and Recommendations”. Since May 2022, she has been a Ph.D. student at Kassel University, in the Urban Development Department under the supervision of Prof. Uwe Altrock. Her thesis focuses on community gardens and kitchens and their social effects on the urban development of marginalized and vulnerable areas in Egypt and Germany. Before joining the Habitat Unit team, she worked as a teaching assistant at the Architecture Department, Faculty of Engineering, Mansoura University, Egypt, from 2017 to 2021. She was then promoted to Assistant Lecturer in 2021 after completing her master’s degree.
 
Hellen Aziz’s research focuses on urban governance, informality, food systems, public spaces, and urban sociology. Moreover, she is involved in interdisciplinary research projects at the Habitat Unit and TU Berlin campus El Gouna, such as urban management, public spaces, refugees and migration, urban mobility, and informal settlements and the informal economy. These projects are conducted in collaboration with numerous universities and international cooperation organizations in Germany, Egypt, Jordan, Tunisia.
 
Education +

2022 – Ongoing 
PhD Student at the Department of Urban regeneration and Planning Theory, Kassel University, under supervision of Prof. Uwe Altrock

2018 – 2021
Master of Science in Urban Development, TU Berlin campus El Gouna. 
Thesis “Towards Good Governance for Street Markets in Egypt. Case studies, benchmarks, and recommendations “

2011 – 2016 
Bachelor of Architecture, Faculty of Engineering, Mansoura University, Egypt

Employment History+

2023
Intern at STERN, Quartiersmanagement Beusselstrasse, Berlin

2022
Intern at the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) Regional Office for Arab States (ROAS), Cairo, Egypt

2022
Researcher (short-term contract), the Habitat Unit, the research project ““Public space as a place of interaction, cohesion, and integration”, funded by DAAD, Ta ź iz Partnerschaft für Demokratie - Programmlinie 2. (Co-writing the research proposal)

2021 – 2022
Assistant Lecturer at the Architecture Department, Faculty of Engineering Mansoura University Egypt 

2021
Researcher in the research project “Modern Heritage to Future Legacy”, TU Berlin
funded by the Berlin University Alliance. 

2021
Researcher (short-term contract), the Habitat Unit, the research project “BRICK: Refugees and Neighbors: Social Space for Integration?”, funded by the DAAD

2021
Researcher (short-term contract), the Habitat Unit, the research project “NEIGHMADA: Neighborhood Management in Hurghada”,  funded by German Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) – German Egyptian Research Fund (GERF). 

2021
Researcher (short-term contract), the Habitat Unit, helping in the project coordination of the research project “Towards Good Governance for Informal Street Markets in Egypt – Practice-oriented Approach”, funded by DAAD.

2021
Guest Researcher in the urban development department in Kassel University as a part of the research project “Delta-Kassel- URRM - Urban Resilience and Risk Management: Understanding Egypt’s Delta Region” funded by DAAD, a cooperation between Kassel university, Mansoura university and Kafr El Sheikh university in Egypt. 

2020
Student assistant at TU Berlin campus El-Gouna, the research project “Vulnerable Urban Areas: Needs and Development Priorities in the Time of Pandemic – Case Study (Tunis, Tunisia)”, funded by DAAD. 

2020
Student assistant at TU Berlin campus El-Gouna, the research project "Delta city planning: Global issues, local actions" with cooperation with Tanta and Mansoura universities in Egypt.  funded by the DAAD. 

2017 – 2021
Teaching assistant at the Architecture Department, Faculty of Engineering Mansoura University Egypt 

2016 – 2018
Part-time Junior architect at Mimar architectural engineering consultancy. Professor. Dalila el kerdany’s office, Cairo, Egypt 

Research Projects +

2023 – 2026
“Towards Green(er) Egyptian Cities. Through People-Centered Practice-Oriented Urban Education”, Habitat Unit

2023 – 2025
“PR-GPS! Power Relations in Urban Governance: Participation in Public Space of the Arab Cities”, Habitat Unit

2022 
“Public space as a place of interaction, cohesion, and integration”, Habitat Unit

2021 – 2022
“BRICK: Refugees and Neighbors: Social Space for Integration?”, Habitat Unit

2021
“Towards Good Governance for Informal Street Markets in Egypt”, Habitat Unit

2020 – 2021
“Modern Heritage to Future Legacy”, Funded by the Berlin University Alliance and the Berlin Centre for Global Engagement. 
A cooperation between the Georg Simmel Center for Metropolitan Studies at Humboldt-University Berlin, TU Berlin Campus El Gouna, and the MHFL Research Hub at Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran

2020
"Vulnerable Urban Areas: Needs and Development Priorities in the Time of Pandemic – Case Study (Tunis, Tunisia)", funded by DAAD.
A cooperation between TU Berlin Campus El Gouna, Carthage university in Tunis, and German Jordanian university. (student assistant)

2020
"Delta city planning: Global issues, local actions", funded by DAAD.
A cooperation between TU Berlin Campus El Gouna, Tanta, and Mansoura universities in Egypt. (student assistant) 

Teaching Activities +

2021 – 2022
Assistant Lecturer at the Architecture Department, Faculty of Engineering Mansoura University Egypt

2017 – 2021
Teaching assistant at the Architecture Department, Faculty of Engineering Mansoura University Egypt

Publications +

2023

with Mirhan Damir and Martin Meyer (2023): “Patterns of Detachment: Spatial Transformations of the Phosphate Industry in el-Quseir, Egypt”, the thematic issue "Urban Heritage and Patterns of Change: Spatial Practices of Physical and Non-Physical Transformation” (2023, Volume 8, Issue 1); https://lnkd.in/dbY28E_x

2022

with Heike Oevermann, Hassan Elmouelhi, Martin Meyer, Mohammadjavad Mahdavinejad, Mirhan Damir, Hellen Aziz, Mohamed Hamdy, Muhammed Martini. Booklet (2022): “Modern Heritage to Future Legacy: Industrial Heritage in Egypt”,  The research project “Modern Heritage to Future Legacy (MHFL): Conservation and Conversion of Modern Industrial Heritage Sites”, TICCIH website, https://ticcih.org/the-first-booklet-on-industrial-heritage-in-egypt-and-iran/

2021

with Hassan Elmouelhi, Sara Nowar, Nada Abdrabou, Ahmed Gaballah, Tayseer Khairy. (2021): “COVID-19 pandemic, between public space and users’behaviors: case studies from Egypt, Jordan, and Germany”. The 17th issue of 'The Journal of Public Space', Vol. 6 n. 1 (2021); https://www.journalpublicspace.org/index.php/jps/issue/view/78

with Salma El Lakany (2021) “The segregation in access to spaces for urban activities during COVID-19 pandemic in relation to gated communities in Egypt”. The 17th issue of 'The Journal of Public Space', Vol. 6 n. 1 (2021); https://www.journalpublicspace.org/index.php/jps/issue/view/78

2020

with Mirhan Damir and Martin Meyer (2020): “ONLINE ACADEMIC CONFERENCE ON INDUSTRIAL HERITAGE”,  TICCIH Bulletin No. 93, 3rd Quarter 2021; https://lnkd.in/eyzWzw3

Conferences+

Papers

(2023) “The community gardens, and kitchens and their contribution to the social development of the marginalized areas in Berlin: the case study of Beettinchen community garden", the conference "LET IT GROW, LET US PLAN, LET IT GROW Nature-based Solutions for Sustainable Resilient Smart Green and Blue Cities" Proceedings of REAL CORP 2023. 28th International Conference on Urban Planning and Regional Development in the Information Society, GeoMultimedia 2023. https://archive.corp.at/cdrom2023/papers2023/CORP2023_32.pdf

(2020) Article “Masks in Street Markets”. The Urban Transcripts Journal, the special issue "COVID-19 ONE YEAR IN".
http://journal.urbantranscripts.org/article/masks-in-street-markets-from-hellen-aziz-mansoura-05-06-2020/

with Salma El Lakany, Mokhtar Gaballah, Asmaa Abd El Razzaq (2019) “Not Our Land: an analysis of a socially dysfunctional community in El Fayrouz, Red Sea Region, Egypt”, REAL CORP 2019 Conference, Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (KIT) https://programm.corp.at/cdrom2019/en/papers.html

with Sara El Gamal (2017) “Revitalization of historical public gardens through soundscape: The case study of Mansoura zoological garden”, Towards a Better Quality of Life conference – QOL, TU-Berlin Campus ELGouna, Egypt. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3163294


Presentations 

with Dr. Eng. Sara Khalil Elmorsy (2023): “Adaptive reuse examples of historical industrial buildings in Germany”, "Making the City: Transformative Spaces in (Post)Industrial Urban Spaces", TU Chemnitz

with Salma El-Lakany (2020): “The water challenges and proposed solutions for Ash Shakhlouba; the Egyptian Venice and El Burullus; the Polluted Lake”, the First International Conference on Urban Water Interfaces (UWI). The abstract is published in the German National Library of Science and Technology (TIB) https://www.tib.eu/en/search/id/TIBKAT:1733879374/

with Esraa Radwan (2020): “The analysis of the street market’s locations’ patterns in Berlin”, “Discovering future Cities” conference, a joined project of the German Jordanian University in Amman, the Notre Dame University in Beirut, the Bauhaus-University Weimar/Germany and the Cairo University

(2018): “The effect of the clash between the state policy and the street vendors on urban spaces, case study: Downtown Cairo”. The city (re)shaped seminar , University of LEEDS, England

Grants, Awards, and Fellowships+

2022 – 2023
KAAD, Katholischer Akademischer Ausländer-Dienst. Doctoral Scholarship

2021
A DAAD fellowship,  guest researcher in the urban development department in Kassel University, as a part of the research project “Delta-Kassel- URRM - Urban Resilience and Risk Management: Understanding Egypt’s Delta Region”, a cooperation between Kassel university, Mansoura university and Kafr El Sheikh university in Egypt. 

2018 – 2021
KAAD, Katholischer Akademischer Ausländer-Dienst., Master Scholarship 

2018 – 2021
SFSD, Sawiris Foundation for Social Development (SFSD), Master Scholarship