Crystal City
The crystal city is the initial conceptual idea for a residential compound in new capital in Cairo , The project is located on an area of 138,096 sqm, The project comprises of residential buildings, a strip mall, and a recreational central area .
Since the compound will take place in a new city with a new futuristic aspirations , we thought to offer the residents a new concept for home and approach this project with unpredictable theme .
So the theme will reflect essential futuristic identity as well as an inspiring new environment and some sought-after features . First step was to translate those aspirations using a basic singular module unit , instead of taking the traditional way of using the uniformed shapes like squares and circles ,, etc. We went after a more complex yet still uniformed shape like triangle or a set of triangle together , and with triangles we created our main module alternatives ( Octahedron , Icosahedron ,and Dodecahedron ) or we call it simply the crystal module.
The creation of the shape was quite critical and new to us , so we wanted to test the project scale on a handmade model to see if the building in the layout will be as we expected in a human scale .
once the model was satisfying enough and the master plan was organized accordingly ,and we went further on trying to solve the residential units using ( octahedron , icosahedron ,and dodecahedron ) and provided different alternatives .
Well we all agreed that it was a bit to much for residential compound , which was obvious from the start , but the processes we went though was very interesting and worth the while , we learned a lot about this particulate geometric composition.
We had two ways to start this projects . first one go small and simple and reach out for mediocre solution , or go beyond expectation and reach a unpredictable yet controversial solution , and we biked the interesting approach and simplifying it afterwards, but not the outer way around .
so this project was the first round for a more simpler concept that came after .
well the design process is never predictable and it's never the same , that the essence of the creative process that you are heading for the unknown ,uncovering new facts testing new ways and revealing new approaches .
each step you are trying to uncover the new potential for the porject ,that's was the mindset we worked on this project with and with almost every each of our projects