Studio Meem

And it's live! We are very pleased to announce the launch of the map-based website (www.1001streetchairscairo.com) of our project Sidewalk Salon. In this website you can follow some of the paths we walked in 6 different areas of the city and sample a selection of the chairs we found along these paths. You can listen to some of the interviews we conducted with the chairs owners and read the fiction and poetry commissioned for the project. Check it out, enjoy and share widely! Support the project by ordering a copy of our book from one of the many distribution points: http://www.sidewalksaloncairo.com/distribution

It was during long walks in Cairo neighborhoods that Studio Meem’s Manar Moursi became interested in the palm-fiber (“gireed”) vegetable crate found on every other street-corner. “I was very attracted to its materiality, imperfection and pattern,” Moursi tells me. “I saw a lot of potential in re-using it.” In 2011 she launched her first product line after researching the crate’s production process. Off the Gireed included palm-fiber seating and shelving units. Read Lara El Gibaly's piece here on some of the designers participating in the Cairo Now Exhibition this week in Dubai Design Week including Studio Meem
http://www.madamasr.com/en/2016/10/26/feature/culture/heritage-in-designembracing-flux-and-function-over-blind-nostalgia/

Heritage in design: Embracing flux and function over blind nostalgia In a global design culture, what do phrases like cultural appropriation, self-exoticism & “authentically Egyptian” mean anymore?

Dubai Design Week 2016 is opening in a few hours with work from talented Cairo designers. Below featured in an article in Ahram English is a photo of Studio Meem's Ahwa Sada tables which will be on display among other work this week. Pass by if you are in Dubai. http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/246264.aspx

All eyes on Cairo’s designers at upcoming Dubai Design Week - Visual Art - Arts & Culture - Ahram Online Cairo is this years Iconic City at Dubai Design Week

Studio Meem's Mapping Cairo and collaboration on the Kodak Passageway were in this year's Egyptian Pavilion in the Venice Biennale. Below a link to a text originally published in the catalogue republished in Domus Magazine on the works included in this year's pavilion.
"Social justice – including more equal access to housing, health care and labor opportunities – were amongst the key demands of revolutionary forces in 2011. Fueled by the energy of the post-revolutionary context, some architects, urbanists and researchers found themselves intensely questioning the two trajectories of growth in Egypt, aiming for a potential force to change and reform. It is the fruits of their work presented in the 15.Venice Architecture Biennale."

Reframing back