Shahira
Fahmy is the founder and principal of Shahira Fahmy Architects, established in
Cairo, Egypt, in 2005, the same year she was awarded the Bibliotheca
Alexandrina Young Architect Award. Since then, the practice has developed an
international presence, with recent competition wins in Switzerland and London.
Its work has been publicised and cited world-wide in a range of publications
and she was recently hailed by Phaidon Press (2011) as one of the
"architects building the Arab future". Her work
ranges from architecture and master-planning to product design, and her
collaborations - both on projects and exhibitions - reflect her strong belief
in the value of teamwork. Such collaborations have included: the new campus for
American University Cairo (2005), with Legorreta+Legorreta, Abdel Halim Ibrahim
and Sasaki; the Ahmed Bahaa El-Din Cultural Center (2010), with Dar el
Handasah; and the exhibition Home in the
Arab World at the 2012 London Architectural Festival in collaboration with
Bas Princen.
Alongside
work in her practice, Ms. Fahmy has been involved in research, teaching and
public-speaking. She holds an MA in Architecture from Cairo University (2004),
where she taught from 1997 to 2007, and has been a guest speaker at prestigious
institutions around the world. Amongst other honours, Shahira Fahmy Architects
was awarded the Green Good Design Award by the Chicago Athenaeum in 2010, and
was the first Egyptian practice to take part in Salone Satellite, Milan Design
Week (2007). The firm is currently involved in the architectural expansion of
the Delfina Foundation Headquarters in London, scheduled to open ahead of
London's Frieze Art Fair in Fall 2013.
