As an architect, planner, and urban designer, I believe that architecture and urban planning are not simply about self-expression. Instead I see their mission as the attempt to capture the culture of the place within a framework of poetic sensitivity and political position. I believe in architecture as the art of narrative, or good story telling. It is my conviction that architectural projects should be conceived as sound arguments. As an urban Designer, I am committed to an approach that is based on including culture as a basic component of any communicative action. As an architectural historian and urban theorist, I believe that buildings and their surrounding contexts often communicate these embedded propositions and assumptions. As an urban historian, I believe that history is always written from the present moment and often in the service of it. As such there is no history that is innocent of contemporary demands. From this perspective, it is my conviction — as may be evident from my writings — that history is neither the knowledge of things that have occurred in the past, nor the memory of these past events, but rather it is the convergence of these events with certain individuals or communities and in specific places as interpreted by others who are usually removed from the time and place of these events.
| Ph.D. Architecture, University of California, Berkeley | 1988 |
| M.S. Architecture, Massachusetts Institute of Technology | 1981 |
| Dip. Town Planning, Cairo University | 1979 |
| B. Architectural Engineering, Cairo University | 1977 |