Faculty of Engineering students win 4th place in the international competition “Soundscape in Urban Design” announced by UNESCO

Under the auspices of Prof. Dr. Mahmoud El-Metini, President of Ain Shams University, Prof. Dr. Abdel Fattah Saoud, Vice President for Education and Student Affairs; Prof. Dr. Omar Al-Husseini, Dean of the Faculty of Engineering, Prof. Dr. Mostafa Refaat, Vice Dean for Education and Student Affairs, the fourth year students participated in the Architecture and Environmental Urbanization Program at the Faculty of Engineering, Ain Shams University within the framework of the outdoor Noise Propagation in Built Environment - which is taught by Prof. Dr.. Mustafa Refaat, Professor of Architecture, Dr. Noha Gamal Saeed, Assistant Professor, Department of Urban Design and Urban Planning, and Prof. Raneem Alaa is the assistant teacher in the international competition "The Place of Sound in Urban Design" announced by UNESCO, in cooperation with the Acoustics Laboratory under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Tamer Al-Nadi and Dr. Adel Saba.

The work team ranked fourth after three French work teams, and the students were honored at UNESCO building in the presence of His Excellency Ambassador Alaa Youssef, Egypt’s Ambassador to France and its permanent representative to UNESCO, and Mr. Amr Abdullah, the Permanent Representative of Egypt to UNESCO, Prof. Dr. Nour El-Sobky, cultural advisor to Egypt in Paris.

The winning team number 17 includes five students: Farah Walid, Hana Ibrahim Yahya, Nada Baligh Hamdi, Kholoud Adel Afifi and Fatmia Walid. The students presented The Night Talk project, which proposes creating an acoustic environment based on natural elements such as afforestation and water elements in one of the urban spaces in the Fifth Settlement.

In the honoring ceremony, in the presence of the competition judges, Mr. Christian Ogonnet, founder of the "Voice Week" in Paris, Dr. Gamal Saeed emphasized the importance of the acoustic dimension in urban and architectural design and the necessity of changing the educational process in order to include the process of listening, criticism and analysis before proposing urban solutions to the current acoustic context.

She also thanked the university administration, the Faculty of Engineering, and the coordinators of the Architecture and Environmental Urbanization Program, Prof. Dr. Marwa Aboul Fotouh and Dr. Ashraf Naseem for their effective assistance in making their participation in this competition a success.

She also commended the attendance of His Excellency Ambassador Alaa Youssef, Egypt's ambassador to France, for the honoring ceremony, as it represents the support for the educational process and his keenness to make Egyptian universities global institutions that participate in various scientific activities.

The Ambassador praised the winning projects and expressed his pride and pride at Ain Shams University, which, in a few months, won two prizes from UNESCO. His Eminence thanked Mr. Christian Ogone for the invitation and for the importance of creating spaces and spaces for dialogue.

His Excellency praised the World Youth Forum, which was hosted by Sharm el-Sheikh earlier this month, with the wide participation of representatives of different countries and international institutions, which is a reflection of the important role that the forum has played on the global scene as an international platform for dialogue between youth, exchange of experiences, and dissemination of the values ​​of tolerance, peace and acceptance of the other.

Mr. Christian Ogone, founder of the Acoustic Week in France, also invited the Faculty of Engineering, Ain Shams University, to join the UNESCO Acoustics Week Association, based in Paris, France, in which 20 countries from around the world will participate this year.

This cooperation includes organizing a group of scientific, artistic and research activities for a week of each year, all of which address the acoustic dimension in various urban, architectural, medical, acoustic engineering, arts and music fields, which will be hosted by Egypt represented by the Faculty of Engineering, Ain Shams University.

This week is considered a cornerstone in the communication between the community and the university about the audio dimension, and this communication aims to increase community awareness of the importance of sound and consider it one of the design elements that contribute strongly to raising the efficiency of design and achieving the quality of daily life.