A Long Collaboration
Composed for El-Jazi.
Each commission below was designed and delivered by Serry Design International — a single architectural voice, calibrated to the brand and the brief.
Featured Commission
EL Jazi Mosque
Public · New, Cairo, Egypt
The Mosque inside Al Jazi Gardens was unique. Due to the compressed structure of Al jazi gardens, our challenge was to set it up according to its Qibla, without disrupt-ing the harmony of the buildings around it. Therefore, we came up with a solution to make the mosque into a circle instead of having its rotated square edges disrupt the flow of the buildings around it. Once we made the mosque into a circle, it created space for a green landscape around it. The green landscape did not stop outside: we incorporated pieces of it inside the mosque as well, on both sides of the circle. In the middle, we created a glass rectangle for people to pray in, rotated and adjusted to head towards the Qibla in a clear format without disrupting the structure around it. This enables the people praying inside the glass rectangle to feel the full atmosphere of the mosque with its integrated greenery. This creates the look and feel of inner peace, and thus enhances the people's experience and strengthens their conneo-tion to god in their prayers. Finally, we added all the functions that the Muezzin and the Imam carry out, in the Minaret of the Mosque, in a unified manner. To strengthen their connection to god. we created an open roof in the Minaret, so the Imam and the Muezzin can see the sky as they perform the Azan and conduct their Prayers. We want everyone that leads the performance to feel how their words can affect the worshipers in the mosque. That they have a strong con-tribution in connecting everyone to God. which is the most important role any man can carry out. We also made the ceiling perforated to add natural light and to make the Minaret and the sky visible to the wor shipers as they perform their prayers and as they listen to the imam's speech on God. This mosque overall creates a direct connection from the people to god.
More Work
Selected Commissions
Residential · New Cairo, Egypt
EL-Jazi Avenue
The goal of this project was to trans-form four buildings compressed together into a fancy hotel custom made to fit the guest's needs and wants. The challenge was to transform buildings built very close together, into a luxurious spacious hotel. Unfortunately, the compression of these buildings removes the guest's privacy in their rooms, and thus contradicts the luxurious aspect of the hotel. To fix this problem we came up with a technological solution where we can control the privacy aspect of the hotel guests. To do so we composed two layers; a layer of glass, and on top of it a sliding layer of carved out perforated calligraphy. The calligraphy layer works as a curtain opening and closing in an inverse manner, exchanging the right to privacy among guests living across from each other. When the calligraphy layer is activated on one side, it'll be turned off on the other. This will make the guests feel comfortable staying at this hotel and not feel any lack of privacy. In addition to solving the privacy problem, the randomness of opening and closing the perforated Calligraphy layer adds a dynamic beauty to the hotel avenue.
Hospitality · New Cairo, Egypt
El-Jazi Garden
Al Jazi wanted this project to serve many functions, so the challenge was to preserve its simplicity in design and deliver a place for each function required. We wanted to construct the building for all the functions without having to actually build a building. We literally broke it down. We split the project into two buildings. One building for "club" and another one for "Z house". The "Z house" building is the residential area where each one of the guests will be staying. The club building is the guests' source of entertainment. However, we didn't want the buildings to stand out as buildings. We decided to blend them into the beautiful gardens around them. We made one of them into something resembling a floating urban plaza, with the building beneath it We made the other building into a wall. This wall had the same Arabic calligraphy carved in as the one in Al Jazi Avenue. We planted plants and added lights inside this wall, and thus the plants would grow to the outside of the wall through the carved calligraphy. This wall surrounded the entertainment center. located beneath a roof of water fountains. Thus, if you see the building from a top view, you won't find any buildings. We successfully blended them in with the park around them