Manarat El Mostaqbal School

Narratives

Architect Narrative

The major cause for the successful realization of this private school complex is the close cooperation between the owner’s educational institute and the architectural consultant. The project was developed over a year, involving a board of the owner’s educational consultants, a team of architects and market survey specialists.
To create a rich school environment four themes were developed:
-The school as a small city :
The project building is designed like a small city with its uptown and downtown areas. The uptown is the neighborhood of classrooms and downtown is the school’s shared facilities and administration. The plazas and midans are the school courtyards and play areas. This concept is expressed in the school building form as well as in interior circulation.
The downtown block is the main block in the compound which houses the shared facilities (library, science laboratory, computer laboratory, gymnasium, multipurpose hall, cafeteria, staff rooms and administration.)
These shared facilities are open to all school grades and represent the communal activities enhancing the student’s freedom of movement and learning. Students go downtown for public gathering (multipurpose hall), for sport events (gym), for working (laboratories), for research (library), for eating out ( cafeteria) and to authority figures (teachers and administration). A rich learning environment is created not only with the interaction of students of different grades with each other and with staff and administration, but also with parents and visitors in special occasions.
The downtown neighborhood of class rooms is less formal, smaller scaled, and more supportive to the student needs for individualized learning. The two blocks of classrooms are divided to boys/ girls classrooms each with its rest rooms and play areas.
Locating the shared facilities block in the middle of the two classroom blocks enhances the movement between the uptown and downtown creating an interesting and active school environment compared to typical mixed facilities in large single building schools.
Places for learning and living:
Indoor and outdoor spaces are designed to provide a variety of areas that enhance group gathering and interaction as well as providing individuals with small corners. Whether it’s for learning, eating or just sitting and chatting there always is the suitable space. Students can find outdoor corners as well as conference and research rooms for small group gatherings.
Green courtyards
Cairo is a hot arid city. With 18 million inhabitants, highly dense neighborhoods, it is rare to find green areas, parks or gardens in the city. The idea of interior courtyards used in the designs of old Arab buildings is reused in the school buildings which gives a sense of surprise when entering the school and creates a relaxing and comfortable atmosphere. Such school environment is important for young student’s mental and psychological development.
These green courtyards have many environmental advantages and help in creating a cool humid environment in the hot desert area the school is located in.
The school as a community center:
The shared facilities block in the school compound is designed with a separate direct access which allows other community members as well as parents to use the school facilities in designated hours. This takes advantage of otherwise dead structure after school hours and in holidays. By opening the school buildings to the community it creates a strong link between it and the school and the buildings acts as a community center.
Environmental concerns
Designing a school building in a developing country with hot climate - i.e. without the possibility of artificial cooling devices- led the architect to consider natural ventilation and cooling concepts as a main choice. The following concepts were used to provide a comfortable indoor and outdoor school environment:
-building east west orientation with the least heat load and facing prevailing wind
-green courtyard concept which generates air circulation in all building spaces
-raising the building’s ground floor to create a large shaded outdoor play area
-creating a green buffer surrounding the site to filter sandy wind and assists in providing shaded areas.

Educator Narrative

As educators with many years experience in establishing schools, we consider the school as a second home for the students. We consider ourselves successful to apply this concept if we can develop a good school environment that students enjoy being in.
we believe a good school environment should have:
-good building and location
-good teachers
-good curriculum
With this belief, the school owners, management and our educational consultants worked very closely with our architectural consultant from early stages of the school’s development. We wanted a school building that students love going to and learning in.
In contrast the desert surrounding, our school has many outdoor spaces with greenery and flowers. Sunny and shaded, teachers are using these spaces as extended learning spaces which encourage close contact with nature.
Students use these spaces not only for sports, but for large gathering as well as small group socializing. (In Cairo it is quite rare to find outdoor spaces).
Shaded outdoor spaces are essential in our school to protect students from direct sun and temperature that can reach 40 degrees.
The many courtyards used within the building make the building very spacious and well lit and ventilated. It was a major requirement not to rely on completely on artificial lighting or air-conditioning, for economical restrictions. The resulting design which uses natural ventilation and lighting is a practical and has economical running cost .
Different sized learning spaces are provided within our school building. From
a capacity of 6-8 students conference or research rooms, to 300 seat lecture hall, the building provides teachers and students with learning spaces to adapt to different subjects and student needs.
Our school is open all year round. We believe that the school can function as
a community center. We provide summer school and weekend activities; as well as teacher training, language and computer classes, and sport classes. With people from the surrounding neighborhood benefiting from our services this enhances the role the school plays in the community