Clemson Students in Luxor, Egypt
Wednesday, February 07, 2007Under the direction of Drs. Hala Nassar and Robert Hewitt, students in the Department of Planning and Landscape Architecture recently joined a design project to transform the face of Luxor, Egypt. Faculty and students in the landscape architecture program will collaborate with faculty and students from the Department of Architecture at Ain Shams University in Cairo, Egypt to work on the beginning of a city redesign that will extend over the next 10 to 20 years. Luxor, also known in the past as the ancient city of Thebes, is situated on the east bank of the Nile River. It is home to both the Luxor and Karnak temples and a ceremonial avenue of sphinxes. In ancient times, this avenue joined the two temples into one grand religious center that commonly held processions and other religious events. The city looks much different today, as Dr. Nassar explains, “Today, with the pressures of urban growth [in] Luxor and of inhabitants’ preference to live as close as possible to the temples (the source of their livelihood), the urban fabric has infringed on the sites of the Karnak and Luxor temples as well as the avenue of the sphinxes.” The avenue is covered by residential neighborhoods, and it is the goal of this project to relocate these residents and restore the temples and avenue areas. During the spring 2007 semester, the first steps of this project were taken by Clemson students as those enrolled in the landscape architecture urban design studio began work with students at Ain Shams in parallel studio courses. The Clemson students visited Egypt in February to see Luxor first-hand and engaged in an urban analysis of the city. They also met their collaborators at Ain Shams University. Upon their return, students in the studio course worked to provide a variety of urban design solutions for key areas of the city. In particular, these students worked on landscape designs that complement the architectural plans of the Ain Shams studio; their work primarily addressed the temple and avenue areas but also included landscape development plans for the west bank of the Nile, including the Valley of the Dead. This project is not only a terrific international, interdisciplinary and cross-cultural educational opportunity for students in the department of planning and landscape architecture, but future collaboration, presentations and scholarly publications will help to increase the national recognition of the department and Clemson University as well. If you would like additional information about this project, contact Dr. Nassar at hnassar@clemson.edu.
