-Analysis-
CAIRO — On March 8, 2021, International Women’s Day, a video spread on social media showing a man sexually assaulting a girl who was no more than 9 years old. A woman intervened after she saw the incident through a surveillance camera of the medical laboratory where she was working. Without that surveillance camera, the girl would not have survived, and the perpetrator would not have been found.
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The incident prompt the question of whether it is possible to prevent and avoid sexual assaults through architecture and urban design in Egypt, a country where sexual harassment is a widespread and serious problem.
An anthropologist who has focused on urban geography and violence, I would like to share my personal experience living in buildings in Cairo and Giza, my movement in each of them, the danger I (a woman) experienced, and how my movement was shaped by architectural design.
Safe movement
In Egypt, building codes do not include any gender-sensitive obligations for urban designers and architects; there are no safety standards designed specifically for women. For example, the lack of lighting in and around buildings also poses a danger to children and women when they move around.
Architectural design codes have generally been developed based on the dimensions of the human body. For example, because the width of the average body ranges from 50 to 60 centimeters, corridors should be at least 60 centimeters. While 90 centimeters allows two people to pass one another.
Architectural and urban construction is no longer separated from people’s lives and their daily needs.
In his 1974 book The Production of Space which was released in 1974, French sociologist and philosopher Henri Lefebvre writes that the production of space depends primarily on the social relationships and activities that take place in it, which produce society. He links the relationship of place and society to the social economic system of capitalism. He also explains how the movement of people in urban spaces is linked to the movement of capitalism in the world.
Based on his philosophy, architectural and urban construction is no longer separated from people’s lives and their daily needs. Geographers no longer separate the analysis and production of urban and architectural designs from the movement of the economy in the world.
Hospitals, courts, schools and prisons are buildings of a specific nature for daily use. Their designs have very important functional factors for the success of their construction and function. That is unlike museums, which have more freedom because their primary function is to deal with creativity.
Dangerous designs
But what about residential buildings? During my time in Cairo (1984 to 2020), I moved every day between buildings in Al-Haram, Al-Munira, Mokattam, Dokki and other neighborhoods in Greater Cairo. I have analyzed the designs of those buildings; each had a different design affecting mobility and personal safety.
Crowds make daily routine movements, mostly between two main destinations: home and work. This movement includes moving between a number of places, from their housing units to public transportation or to their private cars. But what does it mean when this movement and distance is an enormous hardship for some people? What does it mean for some people to suffer in the short distance between their housing unit, to the stairs, from the stairs to the entrance of the building, and from the entrance of the building to their vehicles?
Buildings that do not provide safety increase the daily psychological burden of dealing with those spaces.
Everyone is exposed to risk, but risk and physical security depend on a variety of factors, including gender and age. Many buildings allowed for some kind of safety in movement. But those buildings that do not provide safety increase the daily psychological burden of dealing with those spaces. The worst buildings exposed me to physical bodily harm and even risked my life. Other buildings, I decided I would never enter again.
The movement that I address in my analysis concerned three levels of my daily movement. First was from the door of my residence or apartment unit to the stairs or the elevator door. Second was from the stairs or elevator to my building’s entrance. The third level was from the building entrance to my form of transportation: public transportation, a private car on the street or the garage entrance.
Analysis of movement within my residential building (the first two levels) is a question of architectural design, which is the job of architects. The third level concerned my movement in the wider geographic area, which is the job of urban designers or planners.
Corridors
Designers do not think about the movement of people inside most, or almost all, buildings, and do not make special safety considerations for women or children, as their designs are controlled by capital and functional needs to produce the largest number of residential and commercial units in the building.
Due to a lack of safety studies, concerning for example the lighting and movement paths inside the building, many buildings have turns in the movement paths. An example is an elevator or stairs that cannot be easily seen as a vertical transportation unit or many turns within the movement path, which presents the danger of people hiding.
Three main factors affect the movement and safety of women between the aforementioned levels of urban and architectural design: the design of the corridor; the lighting; and the neighbors and their personalities.
Architects — whether male or female — begin designing a building by determining the vertical movement corridor, the distribution spaces that include the staircase and lighting, and the building entrance. These are main spaces for distribution, and the locations of services and residential units are determined based on them.
According to the market law, the most efficient designer is the one most capable of reducing the areas of movement corridors as much as possible. It is an unsold space. The most efficient is the design exploits every square meter of the housing units, as that is what determines the units’ price.
I do not intend to criticize modern designs; what concerns me are the impacts of these designs on safety.
Residential buildings from the 19th century to the 1940s have wide stairs and large spaces in front of the residential apartments, which gives children space to play inside the building itself. Those can be compared with designs since the 1950s, which responded to urban population growth, urban capitalism, vertical construction and building innovations, technologies to develop it. Since then, vast areas in front of residential units, at the entrances to buildings and in the distribution spaces between residential units have disappeared.
These changes are reflected in Cairo, which has grown significantly since 1905, when it counted 110 vehicles and a population of 400,000. In 2016, those numbers had jumped to 3.5 million and 21 million, respectively.
I do not intend to criticize modern designs; what concerns me are the impacts of these designs on safety, such as corners and corridors that block visibility and allow people to hide. Opening the surfaces to form spaces with clear geometric shapes is a decisive factor, eliminating corners that isolate units and facilitate attacks.
Less lighting
Lighting in all movement corridors is an essential safety factor that requires designers’ attention.
With the presence of elevators, the adequate lighting of stairs has been neglected in modern design. There are fewer windows to naturally light stairs, which is especially important for the residents of lower floors who often use stairs more than elevators.
Artificial lighting depends on lighting networks, which not only require the attention of designers but also the building’s management itself. Maintenance workers must constantly change the lighting units and ensuring their proper functioning. While many buildings rely on automatic light switch timers to save electricity, such systems do not provide safety for women and children.
Neighbors and norms
Neighbors are a complex factor because they are governed by social and cultural norms rather than building codes or explicit laws. In a patriarchal culture, society imposes its patriarchal values on women, which affects their safety. This intersects with the urban and architectural dimension. Women’s right to secure their housing units must be included in the design codes of buildings, in terms of lighting and providing a safety button in the event of exposure to danger.
This battle requires many changes in the beliefs, culture and customs of Egyptian families.
Some neighbors are considered a threat to women, which stems from male power. This could be a neighbor or a landlord, who judges his female tenants by their professions and their respect of “Egyptian family values.” These societal factors cannot be measured. Perhaps mentioning it will contribute to changing Egyptian building laws to consider women who live alone.
This battle requires many changes in the beliefs, culture and customs of Egyptian families. But it is a battle that must begin in Egypt. Around the world, building codes have been changed, for example, to better meet the needs of people with disabilities. The International Building Code was also changed in 2018 to include public restrooms for gender-neutral people.
These changes increases the hope that the Egyptian building code will be changed to increase the space of safety in a country where sexual assaults and harassment of women and children are widespread.
