Reflections of my main assets: Islam, Sudan, Epitesmia and Love
A Worldly Sudanese..
A Sudanese with a Global core.. Realizing how the taste marvelously varies across Countries, Continents, Religions and Cultures.. Believing we have to share it.. Denouncing the 2011 Sudanese Partition..
بناء بالطين (الجالوص) بدون قوالب أو طوب ، فقط عروق خشب للأسقف والأعتاب كم يمكن أن نثري العمارة والبناء في السودان وأفريقيا الابداع المنسي أو المحظور لـ رمسيس ويصا واصف
This morning I slammed down the phone hard and burst into tears when told of Ross Langdon’s death in Kenya at the Nairobi mall. The screams that came out were guttural and intensely grief stricken.
He was a much loved local lad. He was a colleague and friend who went out into the world as an architect doing wondrous things. Yet Ross always returned to his family and cultural roots here on the Tasman Peninsula and we all took immense pride in both his architectural abilities and his very generous, positive, and loving personality. There just was no dark side to Ross that I ever saw in the twenty or so years I knew him.I would always bring up Ross as an example of how a young person — growing up in a rural setting — benefited from this closer connection to nature than could be had at the more “elite” urban schools.
He designed – pro bono — an aids hospital in Kenya. Being in his early 30′s he had already given a TED talk. In Uganda he designed and supervised a unique eco-village employing only local labour. There is much, much more. For one so relatively young, the list of achievements is long.
Let me just mention this, however: Ross was about to start on a $35 million museum centered around the earliest fossil record of humanoids walking: two adults and one child. Ironic, because equally tragic is that his partner Elif Yavuz and their unborn child (due in two weeks) were also killed in the massacre. When they visited me at Windgrove a year and a half ago, Elif had just completed a PhD at Harvard; last month she was personally visited by Bill Clinton in her role with the [Bill] Clinton Health Access Initiative based in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
A week ago I wrote about how talented people needed to move out of their comfort zones and get involved with changing the world before the ongoing “unraveling” tipped into the No-Return stage. For me, and a big reason for today’s grief, is that Ross and Elif symbolized the sort of people doing the Work. They were agents-of-change in the best sense.
Both had dedicated their lives to working for a peaceful world. Both had so much to offer. Besides a personal loss for myself, this is a major global loss. This cannot be underestimated or glossed over by the political pundits who will label Ross and Elif and their unborn child as unfortunate casualties in the war on terror.
Yes, I have been punched in the stomach. Yes, I have collapsed emotionally. Yes, I am not feeling particularly happy or even “forgiving”.
But there is another Yes. And this is a bigger “yes” that says — in honour of Ross and Elif — I will eventually pick up the pieces and continue on with the sort of work they themselves were so involved in: bringing about change to a tattered world based — not on religious grounds or economic gain — just a pure love for all of humanity and the natural world.
An ancient Village became part of chaotic Metropolis.. Reflects horrors of Warsaw WWII.. Landmarks failed city managers.. and survives as tangible condemnation of the long term and bizarre Cairo Urbanity..
100,000 capita on 100 acres of urban land.. Became in the heart of a City.. with lots of challenges of regenerations and development..
Does any NGO initiative capable to revolutionize the rotten processing of urban mismanagement and tycoon land grabbers..?
What is the People's Powers..?
Every day, thousands of cars travel along the 26 July Axis, the “Miḥwar” link between the heart of Cairo and its outskirts, the sprawling satellite cities of 6th of October and Sheikh Zāyid. The Miḥwar then cuts through the area between Zamālik and Tirsāna sporting clubs from one side, and Lebanon Square and Mīt `Uqba from the other. Many see Mīt `Uqba as they pass over it or hear about it in the newspaper; they might consider it one of Gīza’s informal areas that has grown recently in flagrant defiance to the modern Muhandisīn neighborhood and its organized urbanism. What is not understood, however, is that they are crossing over one of the oldest urban communities in the Gīza Governorate, one which was established more than a century ago to manage the surrounding agricultural land. In short, Mīt `Uqba was never a ‘random’ or ‘informal’ area or a flaw in the existing urban order, but rather the original urban order itself which the Muhandisīn district gradually grew around. Muhandisīn itself was only established in the 1950s as an area of single-story villas, and grew rapidly in the early 1970s until Mīt `Uqba was completely surrounded by it. http://tadamun.info/demo/?post_type=city&p=260#.UiwBuilfoiQ
The UAE has the "vainest" skyscrapers in the world, a report measuring the extent of spires and other height-boosting additions to the top of buildings has said.
The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) said unusable space at the top of the UAE's 19 tallest buildings was an average 19 percent of their total height, a measure it called the "vanity height".
The building with the largest vanity height is the 828-metre Burj Khalifa in Dubai, of which 29 percent or 244 meters is unusable - which would rank on its own as the 11th tallest building in Europe, the CTBUH said.
The top three was completed by the Zifeng Tower in Nanjing, China, and the Bank of America Tower in New York. China and the United States were also second and third respectively for the average figure across all of their tall buildings.
Developers typically get higher rents on upper floors, but in developing economies where land and labour is cheaper they can more readily use tall buildings to spark nearby development and make wider schemes viable, said Steve Watts, a tall buildings expert at construction consultancy Alinea.
"You can have towers that are loss-leaders but catalysts for regeneration and iconic structures can sway decision-makers," he said.
Despite the trend being less prevalent in more expensive markets, London's Shard skyscraper, which was bankrolled by the state of Qatar, has a vanity measure of 20 percent, CTBUH said.
"There can also be an ego element with these things with developers wanting to go higher than each other," Watts said.
The world's tallest tower is set to become the one-kilometre Kingdom Tower in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, which will surpass the Burj Khalifa if it opens as planned in 2017.
The tower is expected to cost around SR4.6bn ($1.2 billion) and will form part of a hotel, retail and residential project as the oil-rich country seeks to improve its infrastructure and meet its massive housing needs.
1.Although how exhausted and
stressed the Agency of Makkah Metropolis; why there is no an urban
story-telling of The Holly City?
2.It is obviously notable the
absence of urban grading; why commerciality, favoritism and profitability rule
the urban planning?
3.There is no shortage of
funds, why there is no soft landscape, trees and grass in the open public
spaces and courts around The Holy Mosque?
4.Referring to the ugly
architectural beasts; why skyline is viciously provoked by high-rise trend; despite
both religious and emotional contents advise humiliation, shyness and simplicity?
5.Instead of flatting or removing
mountains, why they are not used for low rise buildings and boutiques; which
can be more profitable, yet less logistically stressful?
6.For the 30-50 thousand new visitors
per day, and double staying daily; where are the reachable public toilets to balance
the incredible number of Zamzam taps?
7.They already sunk some
roads; avoiding complexity of LRT; why they can’t provide ring tram-routes
around The Holy Mosque?
8.There is a silent army of managers,
engineers, technicians and labors behind the scene; yet, why some areas are
ill-equipped, poorly fitted and architecturally downgraded?
9.With the growing number of folding-seat-searches,
what is the reference that Muslims should seat on the floors, apart from
performing Salaat?
