Cairo has been chosen for a pilot project that focuses on currently inhabited architecture, mainly civil and domestic, which is the product of pre-industrial traditions handed down from one generation to the next, and on conserving traditional architecture by carrying out a rehabilitation project that seeks to develop and upgrade traditional crafts.

A site was chosen in historic Cairo, which retains a great deal of traditional urban fabric despite the degradation, decay and neglect of several decades which have led to losses in much of its traditional urban fabric and building heritage.

Since the 1990s, restoration and rehabilitation specialists have identified the general problems affecting restoration and rehabilitation. Those problems could be summarized as follows:

• Groundwater causes damp in the buildings due to capillary action and affects the durability of structural elements. Soil settlement also affects the stability of structures and causes damage to buildings.
• Traffic causes vibration and pollution, which deteriorate building materials.
• A lack of maintenance for long periods due to social and political issues.
• Unsuitable use of historical and traditional buildings due to social and economic issues.
• Many buildings and urban areas face deterioration and demolition.
• The spread of unorganized residential buildings within the urban fabric.
• Recently the government has only paid attention to monuments, not to traditional urban architecture.

Traffic problems in the historic city	General problems in the urban fabric

The site chosen:

• Is representative of Cairo’s traditional architecture.
• Includes traditional craft workshops.
• Has no connection with projects already carried out or in preparation.
• Offers ease of contact with inhabitants who genuinely require upgrading.
• Enables collaboration with government administration sectors.

In site of Wekaleh Bazaraa

The building consists of two storeys with workshops on the ground floor and apartments on the first. Several uses are made of the wekala: shops that open onto Khan Abo Takiya Street, and traditional crafts and small industrial workshops around the open court at the centre of the building and on part of the first floor with a separate entrance. The residential use is on the first floor, which holds two apartments with their own staircase leading up from another street door.

Wekaleh Elghory

The building is in a poor state of conservation due to a lack of maintenance work over a long period of time and the absence of its real owner. The occupants do not pay rent, though they do pay for services (electricity and water supply). Generally, the building requires consolidation of some of the construction elements (bearing walls, wooden ceilings), and rehabilitation and renewal of infrastructures.

Wekala Facade's pilot operation

WORKSHOPS AND CRAFTS

The wekala houses four main small industrial and traditional craft workshops.

Small industrial and traditional craft workshops	Small industrial and traditional craft workshops

1. Metal turnery workshop

• This workshop produces industrial spare parts for other machines used to manufacture gold, silver and brass jewellery.
• It distributes its products all over the area to shops that manufacture jewellery. These products are very important to this kind of manufacturing.
• The lathe workshop is an appropriate target for development from an economic point of view due to the existence around it of a suitable market with no need for transport. Three workers with moderate professional qualifications work the metal lathe. They live outside historic Cairo in Beaulaq and Shobra.

2. Metal washing and painting workshop

• This workshop uses chemical materials for washing and painting brass and aluminium products.
• This kind of traditional craft is very important for Egyptian markets that deal with jewellery products, especially in the surrounding area.
• Three workers with moderate professional qualifications work in this craft and live in the wekala in the first-floor residential area.

3. Brush manufacturing workshop

• This workshop uses old clothes to manufacture fabric brushes for polishing metal products.
• This kind of traditional craft is very important for Egyptian markets that deal with jewellery products, especially in the surrounding area.
• Six workers with moderate professional qualifications work in this craft and live outside the wekala in Gamalia and Manshiet Naser.

4. Hand-made brass lathe products workshop:

• This workshop manufactures brass lathe products and is located near the market for traditional products (Khan el-Khalili).
• Two workers in this traditional craft live outside historic Cairo.