Housing Cairo shortlisted for a National Urban Design Award

We are very happy to announce that Housing Cairo: The Informal Response by Marc Angélil and Charlotte Malterre-Barthes in collaboration with Something Fantastic and CLUSTER has been shortlisted for the Book Award at the 2017 National Urban Design Awards.

The National Urban Design Awards are presented by the London-based Urban Design Group (UDG), a membership charity “open to all who care about the quality of life in our cities, towns and villages and believe that raising standards of urban design is central to its improvement”. In addition to the Book Award, recognition is given to practice and public sector projects, as well as student entries. Reviewing Housing Cairo for the shortlist, Georgia Butina Watson, Professor and Research Director of Urban Design at Oxford Brookes University, remarked:

“Housing Cairo provides an interesting perspective on the housing crisis and solutions in Egypt by first introducing a perspective on what are formal and informal processes of housing production and delivery. Through the background of the national and local politics of urbanism in Egypt the authors explain how various decisions made during different political regimes impacted on the spatial and urban character of Cairo. […] The book will be useful to both academics and practising urban designers and other professionals.”

Last year’s Book Award went to Young – Old: Urban Utopias of an Aging Society (Lars Muller Publishers) by Deane Simpson, who contributed to our recently published title Giraffes, Telegraphs, and Hero of Alexandria, which explores SMAQ’s approach of “urban design by narration”.

The 2017 winner will be announced at the ceremony in London this Thursday, March 2. To see the other nominees and for more info about the awards, see here.

You can get yourself a copy of the award-winning Housing Cairo or Giraffes, Telegraphs, and Hero of Alexandria direct from the Ruby Press shop.