Omar Rabie

In 1995 Omar Rabie completed his Bachelor of Architecture from the School of Fine Arts in Cairo. Since graduation Omar Rabie has been employed at several Egyptian design firms before he joined the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he will be doing his post-graduate Master of Science in Architectural Studies from 2005 to 2007. At MIT Omar Rabie participates as research assistant in the Aga Khan Program of Architecture in the Islamic World. He also represented MIT in the USAID design workshop "The Tsunami Challenge, More Than a Tent".

Question. What do you think about the discussions and reflections proposed by students in this edition of the award?
Answer. First of all I think this kind of competition is very difficult for students and also for jurors because it is very open, and the students select the idea. There isn't a specific site or a specific program and that is more difficult than trying to answer a specific question, and at the same time it is very difficult for jurors because everyone is answering their own questions that they pose for themselves. When you look at all the projects you find a great variety of questions and ideas. About the answers to the questions I am not sure, I am not sure because students are always ambitious, and sometimes they put very difficult questions and they can't even answer. But on the whole I am very satisfied that they have had the courage to pose these difficult questions even if they are not qualified to give the perfect answer. And we have given some prizes to those students who tried to do something very interesting, even if they didn't finish.

Q. Could you describe the process the jury has followed to review the projects and designate the winners and mentions?
A. Usually I think there is more than one way. One way is by selection and the other is by elimination, and in this process we used selection instead of elimination. Selection means that each person has cards in a specific colour and selects the projects he or she likes, about 20 or 30 that they think have potential for a second discussion. First we made our final decision on the three best projects that we wanted to give prizes to, then decided which would be the first, second and third, and then the honourable mentions. Finally we decided to go over all the projects again as a courtesy to all the students who participated, just to make sure there was nothing missing, and we selected the ideas that we thought had potential to be added to the honourable mentions. Often, at similar events, someone wins at the last minute, and I am so happy that the jury members were so keen on giving every competitor one last chance.

Q. The award guidelines mark themes such as artificial and natural light, urban context, the sociological dimension of light and its meaning. Did you see these themes in the projects?
A. I have seen all of these and more. The students have more ideas than we can imagine. So when they wrote the award rules they suggested this and that but they left them open, they said the theme was “Light of Tomorrow.” And this is actually the quality of this kind of award, to give the students freedom.

Q. Talking about freedom, have the projects chosen to belong to a specific site, to a specific urban context?
A. I have seen everything in these projects. Some decided to work on a specific program, on a specific site, to solve a specific technical or a specific functional problem. Others decided to work in the urban context, others decided to work on the details, or to create a very imaginary idea, or an unusual or unknown space.

Q. The selected projects, did they have something in common?
A. We didn't plan on this, but the ideas that were selected and honourable mentions were an expression of all of the directions, some of them were just imaginary, some were more architectural, others were more at the conceptual level... but if you do not accept this in this kind of awards, when will you accept it? At light and shadow... The jury members noticed that there were projects from northern European or colder climates, which are about introducing light, and the warmer climates, which are more about creating shadow.

Q. Concerning the relationship between architecture and light, what role does light play in these projects? Light to highlight textures, light as therapy?
A. There were some actually that were looking at light as therapy, but there were others that started to investigate how the introduction of light starts to change the space. They were really very basic architectural studies but at the same time quite sophisticated. I think the ones that were most successful were the ones that dealt with architecture, light with architectural form and light in interaction with urban form. They were more successful than those dealing with light and technology, because they have to wonder about what their architectural aspiration is.

Q. Have the projects contemplated the qualitative aspects of light? That is, as an element whose variables can be controlled?
A. The prize winner did. The prize winner looked at controlling light through different types of glass, by shadow, by minimising openings, by changing the scale of the room, and that is what is so interesting, very simple architectural moves, but with a combination. In a way it's almost like a light 101, it goes back to basics. I thought it was very sophisticated.