Every year at Cairo University, very interesting projects appear around the engineering department. Junior architecture students create creative, interactive, and artistic designs for their final project for their “Creativity” course. Prof. Arch. Aly Kandil supervises this course with his extreme creativity. He plays around with his assignments every year to get out the best from the students. Consequently, Prof. Kandil pushes them to their limits to express their creative force on a variety of platforms.

Creative designs Cairo University-2020

For this year’s “Creativity” projects, the students had the task to build a dynamic partition wall. The main point was it to be interactive with the context and passers-by. The only constraints about the project were the dimensions which were 2×3 meters. Yet for the materials and design, it was completely open for the students.

Here are the magnificent results!

Folklore Wall

Egyptian folklore strongly inspired the designers for this project. Thus, they wanted to have an interactive wall through cultural identity. They made use of elements like folkloric accessories, traditional drums, and bright colored decorations. All of the elements were incorporated in circular wooden frames with a variety of sizes, which were then distributed randomly to give the wall its abstract form.

The final result was constantly reflecting the sun rays, which drew people’s attention. Additionally, if you got closer, you could hear the accessories shaking with the wind, giving the wall a musical element. Moreover, the shadow cast from this project was very dynamic, as the circular frames were constantly rotating with the wind.

Antistress Wall

Before we asked the students, we were clueless about what this surreal wall is all about. At first sight, we thought it was depicting a picnic cloth with random flip flops on it. Yet, we were completely amazed when we found out about their creativity.

The concept of this project was to create a stress reliever for the overly pressured architecture students. The students created a stress-relieving version of darts, operated with flip-flops instead of pins. Other than the brilliant idea, the project has a lot of details that add a lot to its experience.

On the front side, the wall features black and white sticky scotch strips that give the mood of a darts board. The whole wall had a slight inclination to increase its stability. Keeping in mind that its main function is to be thrown-at with flip-flops. On the backside of the wall, the students added metal springs which will give a cartoonish sound effect when someone “flip-flops” the wall.

And last but not least, they prepared their ammunition. They used 10 pairs of flip-flops equipped with sticky scotch to get you ready for this surreal battle.

Imagine casually going out of your exam then finding people throwing flip-flops on a wall that creates funny sounds. No wonder why people are making fun of architecture students.

Spindelarium

The concept of this one is to create a wall partition that interacts with the wind. The project is composed of the main 2×3 meter frame which is divided into smaller squares and rectangles on a 30 cm grid. The pattern was completely random to replicate the randomness of the movement of the wind, which the wall interacts with.

To ensure its functionality, the designers created a singular module to test their interaction with the wind before constructing the whole project. The final result was showing a fast-paced module that was racing all day with the wind, especially during those last windy days of December.

Pin Wall

This group wanted to give the passers-by to be able to alter the shape of the wall. They punched 1600 circular openings in a wooden panel. Then, they inserted 600 movable pins that go in and out of the wall, which allows anyone to create the shape they wanted on the wall. Additionally, They equipped these pins with a reflective material to give it a more 3D effect

On the other side of the wall, they used yellow paint to add a colorful addition to the monotone university campus. Consequently, the bright color drew people’s attention to come closer and interact with the wall by creating a lot of shapes.

Massage Me S’il Vous Plait

If you study architecture, you will definitely know the strong need of having a back massage after working for ages on a project. This group embraced this need by dedicating its wall design for back massagers.

The wall features a frame that has 24 columns equipped with massaging rollers creating 5 different-sized openings. There is one just for couples, yet if you are a lonely loner, there are 4 other openings for your solo comfort.

While the project is very simple in its design, its impact is definitely huge on the hard-working students who barely sleep during their submission period. Creativity needs a massage, in-deed.

Puzzlium Wall

This group sought another method for stress relief. Their concept was to embrace the inner child and never let the pressure of finals make us forget to stay playful. They created an interactive rotating puzzle that has 4 different results according to how the boxes are oriented.

The wall creates a soothing playfulness atmosphere among students as it requires more than one person to solve it. One has to rotate the pieces and another has to stand a few meters away to check on the whole picture.

The Flying Tubes

With spreading positivity in their mind, the designers gave a dancing colorful addition to the university space. Their main idea was to create a dynamic, colorful installation that instantly takes away any negativity around it.

This group tied over 300 swimming floaters in between 2 trees. And because they tied them with really thin wire, those colorful foam tubes appeared to be floating in mere space, the whole installation looked like an exotic sea creature floating in the campus. There is no doubt that its bright colors gave a positive vibe to its surroundings.

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