A’ARU Wellness Center: Revitalization of Identity Through Narrative Architecture

The project is a wellness centre in Al Ahram district, overlooking the Giza Plateau. It is part of a previously group designed complex with different typologies to revitalize the area in accordance with the government plans. However, in the past few decades architecture and development plans in Egypt has lost touch with its identity, in failed attempts to follow the unfavourable trends of non-contextual clone like concrete and glass cities/buildings. As a result, architecture in Egypt is losing its roots and is no longer a space for people to experience and live, but rather a source of economic revenue.

Thus, and with respect to the project’s proximity to the only remaining ancient world wonder, the centre focuses on revitalizing the ancient Egyptians’ wellness philosophies, also their buildings’ philosophies to create a memory image that brings this culture to mind. This is accomplished through narrative architecture that would achieve holistic wellness by spatial experience and culturally appropriate program functions.

The ancient Egyptians were one of the first civilizations to achieve wellness through placebo effect, it was a spiritual journey of religious nature, mostly performed by priests and took place in temples. Moreover, they considered the optimum state of wellness to be the heavens of Osiris (A’aru fields), where only those with healthy body and sound mind can get rebirthed to enter.

Accordingly, the thesis discusses the relationship between spirituality and wellness. It researches the morphology of sacred architecture and adopt its elements with contemporary twist to inspire feelings of transcendence and rebirth. Moreover, the project tries to recover built and cultural heritage through performing Egyptian holistic practices, also by creating metaphoric journey of ancient Egyptian rituals.

Project Morphology:

All religious structures share the following elements: gate, path and place. For instance, Protruded doors in mosques acting as “gates”, aisles in cathedrals acting as “paths” and the “place” for transcendence that can be seen in Egyptian temples’ sanctuary.

Ancient Egyptian Colours:

The ancient Egyptians had a colourful intake on architecture, with 5 main colours each used to deliver a certain meaning. These same colours were used each associated with its ancient meaning.

Program of the Project:

Both physical and spiritual wellness were essential to reach optimum wellness (A’Aru). Correspondingly, the program was split into two main parts other than auxiliary spaces. Firstly, the physical wellness part, such as: gym, dance studios,etc. Secondly, the spiritual wellness, such as: aromatherapy and acupuncture.

Project Journey:

The experience begins as the metaphorically un-well user enters from the east west axis in reference to the sun journey in ancient Egyptian temples, where he is greeted by a gate like entrance creating memory image of the Egyptian pylons. Afterwards he descends on a ramp following the contour whilst experiencing a darker shaded atmosphere in a journey similar to entry paths of ancient tombs. Until he reaches the place with the lowest contour level which is the metaphoric A’Aru fields, where the boundary between nature and built structure is blurred and one can enjoy the sacred lake with the ruler “Osiris” in the middle and embark on a journey of ascent full of interesting serial vision using the helix ramp symbolizing transcendence until the user reaches the majestic view of the pyramids and reaches the metaphoric state of wellness.