Derek and Marcell

Designing and building this house was a new experience for me. Derek Was an Artist who drew a sketch for his house, gave it to his watchman to build it and left to Cairo.

Two months later, Derek and Marcell Visited me in my house at Lake Qarun and expressed their anger and disappointment with their house’s foundation built by the Watchman.

The foundation seemed to be for a big store not a family house! They asked me to have a look at it to solve their problem. The area of the rooms were so wide that could not be covered by any roofing system.

There were no clear definition for the areas functions, for example the bedrooms were bigger that living areas, while the court was smaller than the bedrooms.

So, I asked the watchman about his job, he laughed and told us that he was illiterate and could not read or understand the drawing!

Without removing any of the foundations in the site, I started drawing the new plan in the field itself and not in my office. In the site, Marcell, Derek and myself discussed in details the design of the new house and were convinced to roof by dome and vaults.

The new design included:

• A Courtyard in the south façade to be used in winter time.
• Bedrooms:
  – 1 Big bedroom with a separate bathroom.
  – 1 Guest bedroom.
• Living areas:
  – 1 Big winter time living area.
  – 1 Big summer time living area.
  Both of them were surrounded by a kitchen.
• A Dry bathroom.

All the walls (50 cm Thickness), domes and vaults were built with Tafla (clay) bricks. The living rooms were roofed by wooden construction.

After building my own house with Tafla (clay) bricks and roofed by domes and vaults, some of the neighbors started building their own houses in same manner. People coming from crowded cities looking for simplicity and peace built their own houses in a simple and traditional style.

On the contrary, the farmers living in the village built their houses with concrete structures so as to imitate the city dwellers and follow the line of technology.

Mr. Abdallah, our next-door neighbor gave us all a hard time. Although he was not convinced with our ideas, asked us to hire his own people. To make peace with him, we decided to hire his older son Ahmed to build Marcell’s house.

After a year and a half, Ahmed has become a professional mason, refused his father’s believes and even built his own house with local building materials and roofed it by domes. He gained the support and assistance of all the community.