Mixed Use Areas at Madrassa of Sultan Hassan
Cairo, Egypt
Located in the Egyptian city of El Cairo, the Mosque and Madrassa of Sultan Hassan is a religious and student centre, where Islamic believers go to pray and to learn about the Coran. The climate of this place is very hot and dry, so it is very important the sun protection. The Madrassa is built with heavy walls which helps to lower the temperature. The building has a square huge courtyard with four iwan rooms opened to this courtyard, helping to the ventilation of the Madrassa. One of this iwan rooms is the mosque, where Islamic believers pray. In the centre of the courtyard are the ablutions fountain.
The development is situated in this iwan rooms, and it is a mixed use development, composed by a library, a living room and a conference hall, one of this is used in each iwan room. The living room is just in front of the mosque, the library and the conference hall are in front of each other in the other faces of the square. The courtyard brings the light into the building, like a powerful light well that illuminate the rooms around, helped by some openings distributed on the exterior walls. The access to courtyard from the entrance of the Madrassa is through dark ways that fall into the courtyard, making a wonderful feeling of light. At the courtyard, the high iwan rooms provide shelter from the sun, so they are a comfortable place to stay.
The challenge was to join the ancient Arabian with contemporary architecture, respecting the importance of light in this building and the sacred aspect of the mosque. The development is based on creating volumes that differentiate spaces with different uses. All these volumes provide shadow to some spaces in order to make them more pleasant.
The library has four different heights organised in an ascendant spiral, where people can make a stop to read or to study in a lovely different place than their own study room. The living room has three different heights that grow up from opposing corners. This generates a place very related to the mosque and opened to the courtyard, where the people can relax and talk to other people. The conference hall is a stepped room based on the ancient Greek bouleuterion, where the citizens meet to make decisions in common. It is totally opened to the courtyard, so it offers the possibility of increase the influx of public and of carry out more different activities.