location: Arab Republic of Egypt

Distance Studio Consultants has been awarded a new “Core and Shell” office building in the New Administrative Capital in Egypt over a plot area around 5,900 square meters. The building has a total built-up area around 19,400 square meters.

ARCO are developing a new Commercial Zone, La Fontain, over a land area around 6,700 square meters with Basement, Ground, First, Second and Roof Floors and total built-up areas around 13,500 square meters. La Fontaine Strip Mall is envisioned as a gateway into the residential compound. It aims to blur the boundary between the highly public busy street, and the more private, calm residential area. This project imagines two alternative solutions to this gateway. The first alternative satisfied all the client programmatic and spatial distribution requirements. It utilizes a solid and void design approach that manipulates both geometric composition and the design of openings. The second alternative goes a step further into rethinking the spatial distribution of programmatic elements. It divides the strip mall into vertically connected zones, each with its own separate function. In order to maintain aesthetic harmony of the design, a dominant shade is added to the project’s roof, thus creating an interesting language of shade and shadow. The shading language is taken a step further into designing louvers that maintain environmental efficiency of the building.