This work package is focused on public space, the built environment that defines it and the scenario-building processes and systems modeling that are to be used to explore the range of future possibilities related to the buildings and spaces of the built environment. In particular it explores the role of public space as the vehicle to creating scenarios that extend the functioning of the Hammam to improve the local quality of life through the pursuit of sustainability oriented means.

Working from the context of the Hammam scenarios involving the restoration of the Hammam at the small scale as well as scenarios involving the neighborhood and the city which at the larger scales are explored. The role of public space in the neighborhood context and the role of scenario building as a research method for projecting alternative futures encompassing what may be considered to be the least desirable to the most desirable and from the most unsustainable to the least unsustainable. The general objective of this work package is to explore and develop the role of scenario building and systems modeling as tools in a larger sustainability design and negotiation process, working from the Hammam within its public space context.

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This work package is less disciplinary based than other work packages It focuses on the characteristics of multiple scenario building techniques which attempt an objective, or at least detached view of the realm of possibilities, both positive and negative, centered around each Hammam. This is in contrast to other work packages which focus on desired sustainable scenario building approaches, which are more interested in identifying the best outcome possible for each Hammam from the perspective of the various stakeholders and researchers. This work package attempts to be more objective by choosing to map out the universe of the possible in relation to the Hammam without, at least initially, privileging only the one(s) that appear to be the most beneficial. In that sense the developed scenarios as they may represent the interests (or lack of interest) of different, potentially competing stakeholders, is less subject to being dismissed as being partisan, activist, or promoting its own agenda. Rather an explication of the various possibilities and their implications, may be useful to the various actors in presenting the choices that may be open to them as well as the potential consequences of their actions or lack of action. These decision oriented scenarios are also the precursors to the construction of systems dynamics models that will be attempted later in the Hammam project.

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Because of the speculative and forward projecting nature of this work package each of the scenario models developed will have a relatively low level of probability of future realization. On the other hand, by mapping out the world of the possible in relation to each Hammam, a fairly accurate picture of the range of what could happen will be developed. Of course there is always the possibility of either catastrophic events or the availability of unanticipated resources or policies, superceding anything that this work package will be able to consider. The sources of observations, ideas, insights and information that will inform the scenarios and prospective systems models developed in this work package will depend largely on the personal observations of the investigator as along with the information gathered by other researchers and their observations and conclusions as well as those of the various participants and stakeholders that the research teams are able to identify. The quality of these scenarios will also depend upon the interest and involvement of the other researchers in this scenario building process. It is to be anticipated that each of the local and specialist researchers will be creating their own mini-scenarios (if you will) within their own disciplinary observations which may well be in conflict with the more general macro-scenarios developed in this work package (see later examples). It will be part of the integration effort of this work package to try to make a bridge with such local sub-optimization, with increasingly larger scaled potential scenarios that this work package will focus on. To be sure any new idea or new bit of information could be the trigger for the creation of a new scenario or the modification or elimination of a previously developed scenario. In previous work we have seen that such new information can often invalidate assumptions that may be made in the construction of various scenarios, but this is not to be taken as a critique of the scenario building process, as the conflicting information may not have appeared if the now erroneous scenario had not been offered in the first place. In this sense the scenario building process is a learning ecology and serves a variety of integrative and communication and information mining purposes. If it brings both expert or stakeholder conflicts or differences to the surface, that can be most useful, particularly if such differences lead to more accurate, more sophisticated or more realizable future scenarios.

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In each country, city and Hammam, the world of the possible relating to the Hammams will likely be quite different. It is possible that in some cases everything will be in place for a narrow focus on the restoration of the given Hammam. In other case as in Cairo a whole range of larger issues may be brought to the discussion as well as to the scenarios to be developed which could include social/cultural issues, ecological, issues, economic issues and built environmental issues – in other words the whole range of sustainability issues. In such a case it would be difficult to know where to draw the boundaries of the problem. On the one hand in each case we know that an extensive study on the restoration of the Hammam is a given, but in the case of Cairo, the scenarios could easily expand to include the street, the neighborhood, the district and even the whole city. And the possible scenarios at these different scales could be focused on the built environment – which is at least the starting focus of this work package- but could also include the other issues (social-cultural, etc.) that make up the realm of sustainability. The great advantage of the multiple scenario building process is that it is not necessary to quickly make the decision as to how to tightly structure the preferred scenario and thereby risk assembling a flawed scenario/proposal, thereby eliminating the likelihood of developing other, equally valuable proposals. The disadvantage is that such a quest involves an enormous amount of work to adequately develop the range of scenarios and still there is the question of deciding where to stop. The latter should not be such a large problem in HAMMAM. If it were a development project, it would become critical to on the one hand to develop the fullest range of potentially advantageous scenarios that reflect sustainability balancing methods and then to narrow them down to the one best scenario to be implemented within the development project. HAMMAM has the great advantage of being a research project. As a research project it is our quest to develop the research method, and to test it over a variety of conditions and present it to the research community as a proposal for advancing the state of the art. There are a number of significant ways in which HAMMAM research promises to make such a contribution. While it is our hope that our presence and our work in the various Hammams would increase the possibility of positive action in the actual restoration of these cultural treasures and increasing their positive contribution to urbanistic quality, civil society processes, and the improvement of economic equity and wellbeing, (and in no case leaving the local situation worse off as a result of our work) these would be collateral benefits that are not our responsibility, not within our competence and should not be permitted to compromise our overall research agenda.

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Apart from the use of the data collected by the case study teams which will include plans, sections, elevations, photographs, details, descriptions, materials, systems, urban plans and projection of future planning, jurisdictional regulations, political and cultural framework and constraints – all as reported by the local teams, this work package has no formal data collection techniques. Instead it will rely heavily upon on site observations, photographs, measurements, researchers reports and discussions. It will work with and encourage the specialists to extend their reports into the development of multiple specialist scenarios and then to extend those scenarios into the more global scenarios that are developed in this work package.

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Scenario building isn’t necessarily or automatically sustainable. Scenario building is a proposition or a chain of propositions, not necessarily good or bad - just speculative what-if questions. What-if we were to do this or that? What-if this or that were to happen? What sorts of things might happen as a result and what then might happen as a continuing consequence after that? As a what-if scenario were to emerge, what additional actions or inputs might be contemplated to move the emerging scenario in one direction or another? What are the negative things that might happen if nothing were done – i.e. the “business as usual” scenario or scenarios? What sorts of initial moves might be made to move the business as usual scenario off center? What small interventions might yield large consequences (the “acupuncture points”) . What positive initial actions might yield subsequent negative consequences and conversely, what negative initial interventions might precipitate positive longer term results?

In Setting up a scenario-building exercise it may be helpful to first start with a brainstorming session aimed at identifying, or at least mapping out the “universe of the possible.” Not just those scenarios that are potentially desirable, but the whole range of scenarios –good and bad and indeterminate – that one could imagine might be possible. It may then be useful to try to imagine under which condition each of them might come to pass and how they might be discouraged in the case of the ones that appeared to be undesirable and how they might be supported in the case of the more interesting ones.

In addition to the charge to develop a restoration proposal for each Hammam there is also the charge to explore the potential for a restored Hammam to increase the quality of life within the neighborhood through sustainability oriented scenario building processes. This means that such a process would develop both the social and cultural dimensions, the environmental dimensions, the ecological dimensions of the neighborhood of the Hammam and that the project makes both an architectural and urbanistic contribution. A variety of scenarios are to be developed, beginning with leaving the situation as it is and culminating in one or more desired or preferred scenarios. Of course what is preferred depends upon who is doing the preferring. In a typical situation different stakeholders and potential stakeholders may be expected to have very different preferences. In the case of the Bab el Bahr for example the Hammam owner may not be interested in restoring or upgrading the Hammam if he is not assured that such expenditures will be cost effective, or he might elect to upgrade in a different way or to different standards to those recommended by the project team. Hammam users might have different interests form the owner particularly if the restored Hammam is more expensive or offers different services that are currently the case. The neighborhood residents, very few of whom actually use the Hammam might have still different preferences including seeing the Hammam replaced by different activities or a different building. So there are a number of “worst case” scenarios for the Babb el Bahr including the possibility that even though the Hammam has been in the owner’s family for many generations, he also owns several far more lucrative businesses and might at some point just lock the door and let nature take its inexorable course. Antiquities authorities may have still different preferences or even requirements for the disposal of the Hammam property. So to come up with one preferred scenario for the Hammam, even if it is sustainability oriented, unless it is reached by an extended process involving a wide representation of stakeholders becomes a rather risky operation. Developing a preferred, advocacy scenario through an extended stakeholder process also starts to take the process out of the research realm and into the development realm which is also somewhat problematic. In addition it risks circumventing some potentially important aspects of the research potential of the Hammam exercise.

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Because the HAMMAM project begins with the restoration studies of the different Hammams, the closer to the efficient functioning and restoration of each Hammam that our expert studies get, the more specific and detailed the data, the analyses and the recommendation will become. In effect the restoration study of each Hammam could be viewed as a complete and separate project. In fact it will be much easier for the experts who are focused on the functioning and restoration of a Hammam to work just on that task and not be distracted by other issues. This is what they are trained to do and this is what they do in their professional practice. To illustrate an effect of this mindset consider the initial recommendation from the energy work package team that each of the partners contribute one pound each to give to the Bab el Bahr owner so that with this modest sum he could put insulation around the hot water boiler to make it more efficient, thus effecting significant energy and therefore cost savings in the Hammam operation. This “picking the low hanging fruit” approach is to be expected from experts whose practice is to look at a particular situation to assess the least costly and most direct way of effecting cost savings – the most bang for the buck. Of course such an act would risk becoming a short circuit to carrying out any of the larger values of the Hammam project, i.e. insulating the current boiler means that you are resigned to keeping a very inefficient, highly polluting, facility using dirty fuel in place rather than considering other alternatives, as well as shutting out the possibility of linking the provision of hot water to any other architectural, social, economic or ecological issues or possibilities. As might be expected, later findings of the energy work package moved in the more useful direction of developing multiple scenarios albeit scenarios limited strictly to that work package. (see more below). The tendency to develop work package specific scenarios highlights the tendency found in virtually all disciplines to sub optimize solutions at the smallest scale. This is a tendency that HAMMAM has been specifically designed to address.

The analytical approach is to identify and to eliminate problems as soon as possible and at the smallest scale as possible (i.e. to insulate a boiler to increase it’s efficiency.) In contrast the integrative approach is to regard problems as opportunities and to aggregate problem/opportunities as the resources for realizing a larger agenda. And even further the sustainability approach is to assemble the widest possible collection of problem/opportunities and for different stakeholder groups to assemble them in a variety of different competing scenarios to satisfy their collective needs within the limits of nature. The energy work package later developed three scenarios. Beyond insulating the primitive boiler, they were developing a scenario to install an efficient modern European type boiler and as the extreme scenario they would propose installing solar hot water collectors on the roof, although they had calculated that such an installation would provide only 2/3 of the required hot water. This is a good start from a disciplinary perspective, but it would be a pity if the exercise were to stop here. But where could it go? To begin with it is worth considering how hot water used to be produced at the Bab el Bahr. In the recent past people threw their garbage out of the windows of the taller adjacent apartment buildings onto the roof of the Hammam (they still do!) This garbage being largely organic, was collected and used as the fuel to supply the Hammam’s hot water needs. In addition the boiler was so designed that it could also be used to cook fuul, one of the most ubiquitous, healthiest (and tastiest) dishes in the Middle Eastern cuisine. Such a process is inherently more ecological, more socially and economically oriented and has the potential as an incubator for civil society processes and as tool for neighborhood coherence, hygiene and sanitation. It is certainly a scenario that bears revisiting for its potential as a template for other possible scenarios that might yield similarly favorable connections. As the key to sustainability oriented scenario building is making ever widening connections, any model or opportunity for doing this should be explored and if necessary brought up to date with sustainability oriented means. Even a more technical, mechanistic approach has the potential of being extended into non technical realms which appears to be a precondition for developing sustainability oriented scenarios. For example as very few people in the neighborhood use the Hammam any longer, it is clear that in addition to renovation, other things will have to change to make it attractive to a new generation of potential users. The image of Hammam must change from an old fashioned, unsanitary, decrepit, flophouse for the transient poor with somewhat unsavory reputation (worst case) to a modern, forward looking, fashionable, healthful, social, sociable, place to go if anything like the traditional Hammam function is to be maintained.

Changing the Hammam protocol is certainly worth considering. Cairo Hammams seem to be unique in offering plunge baths and in the current protocol patrons use these baths before they have washed themselves. The water in the plunge baths which are the major consumers of hot water in the Hammam is changed twice daily (so we are told). The current water use of the Hammam can be carefully measured and regarded to be a fixed requirement, but it is not a fixed requirement. It is contingent upon other factors. “What if” the use protocol of the Hammam were changed so that the plunge bath was used only after patrons had washed themselves (as in the Japanese and other bath traditions). Perhaps the water would then need to be changed only once daily, greatly reducing the amount of hot water required. Perhaps then the solar hot water scenario would be viable, as (according to the preliminary findings of the energy work package), solar could then provide all of the hot water requirements, obviating the need for a fossil fueled (unsustainable) back-up system. Or what if instead of European flat plate solar collectors, highly efficient very inexpensive evacuated tube hot water collectors from China were used, lowering costs and increasing heat output. How does that affect systems dynamics? Or what if a radiant heating system was installed under the floor of the Hammam (which needs to be redone anyway) so that instead of draining the plunge pool to the sewer directly, the hot waste water was used to heat the space (and lets also consider putting some insulation below the renewed floor while we’re at it). How would that affect the balances in this expanding systems model? Or to take these scenarios in a different direction, what if we were to go back to a reconsideration of the garbage as fuel model. (The accumulation of garbage in this and other Cairo neighborhoods is a serious problem.) What if the collection, sorting and processing of garbage were a new (renewed) function to occur on the otherwise unused roof of the Hammam? What if the dropping off of garbage were traded for Hammam use credits and all garbage were either recycled or ecologically burned (or what if it were used as a biofuel generating biogas?) - to generate fuel for the Hammam boiler and perhaps for the nearby bakery, or perhaps as a larger solar hot water demonstration incubator – a sales center for the district, or a center for the generation of biogas for the local neighborhood? Or what if the Hammam rooftop now posited as valued real estate in an area where one of the most highly valued commodities is open space, were now to take on additional public space or commercial functions – a park, a café, a playground, a day care center, or an extension of Hammam health club functions of a facility that in its renewed form is now attracting a great number of new patrons?

None of these what-if questions is to be regarded as a suggestion or an attempt to come up with the best future scenario. They are merely illustrations as to how systemic thinking and how the aggregation of problematic conditions can generate a variety of scenarios that can be compared and cross-referenced and grown larger and more embracing. Diagrams and eventually systems models can be made of the overlap and interaction of these and other related scenarios which can be “run” to explore their consequences and to be externalized so that they can be subjected to critiques by experts and stakeholders and to be extended in different directions through brainstorming by these groups to the extent that they can be drawn into the “game”. It should be noted that although the above example of how scenarios could extend in a variety of different directions started with a consideration of “energy” the speculation quickly extended into other realms: garbage, social services, entrepreneurial activities (economy) ecology, built environment, public space and through the critique of these scenarios would extend to all other areas as well. One could hardly expect a work package whose deliverables were largely focused on energy issues to wander into these many other realms without significant outside participation or interest. Of course as this exercise would continue, its greater value would occur when it was able to engage the synergies that would become possible when Hammam users, management, neighbors, environmental considerations, economic considerations, urbanistic considerations, and political considerations would be incorporated into the expanding scenarios making them more diverse and more robust. It is also critical to develop these scenarios in a systems environment so that the failure of any one assumption or the introduction of new or better information does not threaten the credibility of the entire process. This is to say that because there is no way to predict the future, it is much too risky to put all ones eggs in one basket, i.e. trying to come up with the one best future scenario which could crumble if any one of the assumptions or actions upon which it rests proves to be untenable. On the other hand, I believe these two different approaches to scenario building can be mutually supportive. The pursuit of a best case sustainability oriented scenario can be extremely useful in providing the model and inspiration for exploring alternative scenarios, many of which will not be desirable. Conversely creating a number of alternative scenarios, some of which might be highly desirable, protects the best case effort from criticism when its underlying assumptions may be questioned by different interest groups. In the case of a scenario network of linked possibilities, when new or better information weakens a preferred scenario, the several new scenarios that might succeed it are thereby stronger and more credible. In this example a “what if” scenario “attracts” the information necessary to explore its consequences, either when the assumptions or scenario consequences are contested or when in order to complete the scenario, further information is required. When the scenario proves to be less than desired, nothing is lost because the running of that what-if scenario has produced better information than before and is thus likely to suggest better what-if scenarios in the future, based on the new lessons learned from the failed attempt.

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This work package begins with the relation of the Hammam to public space, architecture and urban design. In walking along Bab el Sharia day after day it became clear how little these subjects appeared to relate to the reality of the vibrant life of that street. For one thing architecture absolutely disappears. The visual universe of Bab el Sharia feasts the eyes and overwhelms the senses. The experience is a rapid motion cinematic extravaganza whose motion cannot be slowed. The few hints of building form disappear behind piles of vegetables, street vendors, all manner of craft and retail shops pouring out into the street, stacks of new boxes stacked and bound three and four meters high, whole sides of animals and sausages dripping from the fronts of butcher shops, queues of women lining up behind a falafel mix grinding machine. Only occasionally does a small but ornate doorway to a mosque present itself as a fixed punctuation to the ever moving, vibrating scenery constricting the street from bursting outward. The eye is not permitted to travel very far down the street with its crowds of people, horse and donkey carts, bicycles, vespas, and Suzuki minilorries constantly battling for their share of the narrow space. There is no time to hesitate for the continuous struggle to keep ones moving place in this two way river of motion. There is no time or space to raise ones eyes to see that yes, behind this visual and sensual barrage there are actual buildings. There is little hint of this fact at street level – at eye level, but in the rare moments where one can duck out of the stream with a safe place to momentarily stand still, if one were to look up one would see that there are buildings defining this street space and some are very old and only of one or two stories while others are rather new towers rising fifteen stories or more. There is no hint at the experiential level of the street of the varied building fabric that defines it. In fact the scale or quality of this building fabric appears to have little effect on the life of the street.

On the one hand this suggests that the quality of building fabric or even the built environment in general has little effect on the vibrancy of the communal life in public space. But this would be an illusion. Upon further examination there is clearly a lot happening in private behind these walls of activities, from dense low quality residential buildings to high rise upper middle class residences; from tiny storefront shops to huge factories – each subsuming the same amount of street frontage. A newer peculiarity of Cairo urbanism is that perhaps realizing the inadequacy of the existing street pattern of major streets like Bab el Sharia, ordinances have been enacted providing that when buildings come down in certain places, along such streets no new buildings may be built and the resulting open space is somehow dedicated to public usage. Eventually should an accumulation of such vacancies become continuous the entire street may be widened. There is one such spot along Bab el Sharia where the results of this policy are in evidence. Here newer high rise residential towers now sit back from the street, but the resulting open space has been largely appropriated by street vendors and temporary structures. In other parts of the city more fortuitous collapses have created genuine public squares more reminiscent of European examples that have taken on a real public function. The consequences of this policy are largely chaotic and difficult to predict. Part of this intent to relieve this urban congestion seems to be an attempt to move small businesses and particularly manufacturing out of the dense inner city neighborhoods, but such operations and concentrations are clearly one of the major causes of the vibrancy of these neighborhoods. These operations are clearly extremely complex and are not just a collection of individual businesses, but are rather a highly integrated network of businesses, operations, support systems and people that are highly mutually interdependent. They might well benefit from some form of restructuring (this is well beyond the purview of this study, but not of neighborhood sustainability), but it is apparent that both these neighborhoods as well as the businesses might well perish if the commercial activities were moved to suburban industrial parks.

One of the more unexpected aspects of the Hammam situation in Cairo is that from an urbanistic sense these Hammams which were once a significant part of the life of the city were and remain practically invisible. For such important, elegant edifices, second perhaps only to the Mosques in the architectural elaboration of their interiors, their entrances remain almost hidden and they have no facades! There are several explanations, or at least theories for their most modest urbanistic presence one of which is based upon their religious context. Although the Hammam is a public facility the activities that take place within are of an exceedingly private nature – never mind the eroticism of the nineteenth century “orientalist” paintings (Gerome’, et.al.) Making the Hammam as inconspicuous on the outside even as it often so ornate on the inside may derive from the duality in the Islamic religion which demands cleanliness and ritual bathing, but also extreme modesty, especially for women in regard to the exposure of the body to the eyes of others – in the extreme case, for men to even see the face of a mature woman. To revive or restore the Hammam and in some sense to revive the Hammam tradition as well, as other than a museum artifact, thus carries with it many contradictions. Whereas the Mosque almost always had a huge visual, urban, presence and importance in the Islamic city, the nearby Hammam and its entrance, was typically hidden even though its use and function was highly integrated with the religion and the functioning of the Mosque. This means that while the fabric of the city and its paths and streets is continuous and while the interior architecture of the Hammam is highly complex, very beautiful, coherent and continuous, the connection – the portal between the two – the modest entrance to the hidden Hammam, represents a spatial discontinuity, out of keeping with the spatial dynamism of the urbanism context outside and the organization and elegance of the architectural spatiality inside. This makes it most difficult to consider the Hammam in its relation to the street and the neighborhood because of all the faces of buildings and activities on the street, the Hammam has the least presence. Can or should this change as the Hammam finds a new image and relationship to neighbors and neighborhood? This is not clear.

The situation of the Hammam Tanbali is particularly interesting and problematic. Unlike the Hammam Bab el Bahr, it is not located on a bustling street that is at the heart of a neighborhood. Tanbali is on a street that has always been on the edge of the neighborhood. This is because behind the buildings across the street was the original north wall of the city of Cairo and although the wall has long since disappeared except perhaps for its foundations, over the centuries the memory of the continuous walls persists in the form of a succession of newer walls built over the original foundations, effectively isolating the Bab el Sharia neighborhood from the newer and rather different neighborhood that begins on the other side of this phantom wall. Recently a long swath of buildings on the other side of the street from Tanbali has been demolished revealing the rear wall remnants of the buildings that had backed up to the line of the original wall. Although it is clear that the Tanbali street was never as vibrant as the Bab el Sharia, with the new rubble strewn parking lot the street seems in a sort of suspended animation waiting perhaps for something even worse to happen. No one seems to know the fate or even the next step that secretive city planning officials may have in mind. One assumption or is it a rumor, is that the original city wall will be rebuilt as a replica, to follow it’s original line all the way to Midan Ramses a large square supporting a major Mosque and the main train station. Along one or both sides of this new wall will be a continuation of a highway that is already in existence to the east where the wall has recently been reconstructed. This would link the eastern part of the city with Midan Ramses where a major highway runs, heading south to the center of Cairo as well as north out of town. Some think that such a link is unlikely because the buildings that would have to come down near Midan Ramses are much newer and larger, not like the run down buildings that have already been more easily removed. In any case Midan Ramses is already thoroughly congested in a city that to western eyes has impossible traffic. To dump another major artery into that maelstrom would threaten to gridlock it entirely.

Perhaps this seems too far afield from the consideration of the restoration of Tanbali, but in any case this is what one is exposed to when walking out the Tanbali’s door and that the eventual disposition of Tanbali is highly dependant upon its urban context. Tanbali, already at the edge of a neighborhood, would become even more detached if it faced a new highway and a major wall, than it did when it faced a narrow street with a fine grain of urban fabric. If it faced a highway it would belong less to the neighborhood and more to the city. In addition to the long row of urban fabric that has been demolished across the street there is new building immediately adjacent to the Tanbali. A new high rise apartment building is under construction and already partially occupied. It’s presence is so strong on the Tanbali site that looking almost straight up from inside the Tanbali through one of the collapsed domes, this residential tower completely dominates the view. While to sophisticated architectural eyes, the building is rather ugly with very poor standards of construction, it is probably within local upper middle class standards and certainly of a quality many levels above that of all the adjacent old housing stock. This may well be the first step in the gentrification of the neighborhood or at least of the new Tanbali street or whatever form that street is to take. There are many rumors about the street’s future. In terms of scenario building the alternatives may make a big difference for the future of Tanbali. The new residential tower sits back from the line of the Tanbali and all the other buildings along the street. Perhaps the developer has some inside information that as buildings come down and as the Tanbali may be demolished through neglect – a process already well under way, the tower will then front on the new line of the street. In fact some of the local shopkeepers who did not even frequent the Tanbali in its heyday, strongly support its restoration as an insurance policy for protecting the line of their shops as the front of the street.

In studying the development process along the restored east wall and almost adjacent restored north wall several scenarios present themselves that may influence the consideration of the eventual disposition of the Tanbali. In the nearby restoration of the north wall in the vicinity of the Bab el Nasr (a magnificent gate through the wall), while the parasitic buildings on both sides of the wall had been cleared away (as is now the case in the vicinity of the Tanbali,) Only the territory on the outside of the reconstructed wall, a corridor of about 30 – 40 meters, has become a boulevard. Inside the reconstructed wall is a combination of narrow streets, green spaces, and buildings in an idiosyncratic pattern. This pattern suggests that if the wall reconstruction were continued westward from the end of the current reconstruction (albeit across two major thoroughfares that cross near Midan Bab el Sharia) toward the Midan Ramses, it would be far more likely to continue on the outside of the wall then to change its position and tuck itself into the much more constricted space opposite Tanbali (less than 20 meters is available vs. the more that 30 meters that would be available on the other side of the wall ). Some have suggested that the plan may be to have a one way road running west on the outside of the wall and running east on the inside of the wall. The only argument against the (whole) boulevard running on the outside of the wall where in any case there would be more room seems to be that as the boulevard would approach Midan Ramses to the west there are newer more upscale apartment buildings that would have to come down and such demolition would be politically more difficult to do. But as already mentioned, to connect any new artery with Midan Ramses would require major surgery in any case.

In considering different scenarios for the disposition of Hammam Tanbali it is necessary to embed them in assumptions for the disposition of Tanbali street. One scenario is to assume the context of the street becoming a major one way artery (with the other way located on the other side of the reconstructed wall), either maintaining the current line of the south side of the street or with all existing buildings on the Tanbali (south) side of the street now aligned approximately in the plane of the new multistory building, (this would be possible if the vestibule entrance of the Tanbali were removed which might be permissible by the ministry of antiquities as it had been only recently added in the 1930’s). In this scenario, the entire character of the street would likely change as the now one sided street would be unlikely to sustain the businesses that currently exist with half of their immediate support system missing. With the greatly improved accessibility and the likely rise in property values the new boulevard would likely become gentrified with old deteriorating one and two story buildings coming down and new high rise residential and perhaps office and commercial establishments replacing them. Being much more oriented to the new boulevard then to the old and deteriorating fabric behind them in the Bab el Sharia neighborhood, the new street would likely be much more oriented to the larger city of Cairo then to any local economic or social structures. In one version of this scenario, the Tanbali would have little reason to orient itself to the old neighborhood and its needs and could now become in its restored form some upscale establishment serving the boulevard, its wealthier residents and patrons from the larger city.

An alternative and perhaps more likely reading of the alignment of the new boulevard would place it on the outside of the reconstructed wall asa continuation of the existing road pattern immediately to the east. This would free up the space between Tanbali street and the wall for other uses, perhaps an urban park which might be similar to approaches taken near the Bab el Nasr wall. In scenarios following this assumption, the freed up space could be used almost entirely to enhance the quality of the local neighborhood.

An alternative approach to exploring Tanbali scenarios might gravitate in an opposite direction. The Tanbali seems to have had a back entrance – a women’s entrance that was extremely well hidden and in fact barely remains. It is located of a small back alley deep in the Bab al Sharia neighborhood and is as secluded as the neighborhood affords. Access from this direction comes through piles of garbage and unused or abandoned sites some of which are part of the Tanbali property and which are in effect contiguous with the roof of the Tanbali. The scene is quite derelict and on the rooftop, or at least on a piece of land at the level of the roof and connecting to the back street (and hiding the old route of the women’s entrance) is a squatter’s shack that somehow seems to be a vibrant part of the social scene of this back alley. The scene is a visually seamless carpet of trash that seems to stretch from the street over the squatter’s yard and its adjacent sites and over the deteriorating domes of the Hammam. In bizarre contrast, immediately adjacent to this gray textured carpet is the new high rise building already mentioned. Any number of interesting scenarios could be projected from this southside/ backside of Tanbali, each with a rather different tilt from scenarios projected from the north side of Tanbali. Here the link with the neighborhood at it’s most basic is palpable. There is a lot of “new land” available here for development in combination with the restoration of Tanbali. As it is potentially extremely valuable territory it may well be highly contested. As the whole site and project could represent the collision of the most upscale as well as downscale characteristics of the neighborhood and the city there are some fascinating participatory scenario building processes that could well occur here that have all the potentials of the Bab el Bahr site and many more.

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The activity of scenario building will be extremely important in exploring the Hammam and its relation to public space and to architecture. Listed below are the sorts of scenarios that are to be pursued in the next phases of the project, more or less in hierarchical order:

• Business as Usual Scenario- What will likely happen if there were no HAMMAM project and things continued on their current course. In the case of Tanbali this scenario might well result in demolition through neglect.
• Worst Case Scenario(s) – in the case of Bab el Bahr, the owner might decide that continuing to operate might not be worth the trouble and might just lock the door resulting also in demolition through neglect.
• Restoration Scenario – the minimum acceptable scenario. From here many other scenarios are generated.
• “800 Pound Gorilla in the Room” Scenario – In the case of Bab el Bahr, the 800 pound Gorilla appears to be the owner. No matter what HAMMAM or the people we would like to empower as stakeholders recommend, he is the only real stakeholder and can do pretty well what he wants. Never the less, from a scientific point of view in developing the various scenarios it may be useful not to try to second guess him or otherwise appease him so that the scientific process can go ahead with the Hammam as a case study, even if the actual restoration of the Bab el Bahr should become blocked. There may well be other 800 pound gorillas that are to be encountered in the HAMMAM project. These real world impediments should not be allowed to block the exploration of useful alternative scenarios.
• Extending Hammam into the Public Space Scenarios – Scenario building must not stop at the Hammam door. It must be extended into the wider public realm through ideas arising from the different disciplines and the various stakeholders.
• Sustainability Oriented Scenarios – There are two different qualities that ideas may have – They can be good ideas unto themselves (i.e. insulate the boiler for better performance), or they can lead to other, perhaps even better ideas. The former has the tendency to solve a problem at the smallest scale, thus ending the line of inquiry. The latter looks for strategies for aggregating problem conditions so that at the scale of the whole they may be solved in mutually supportive, integrative ways. The former looks to strike a balance in the most immediate way (problem solving). The latter tries to assemble multiple strategies for solving each problem, but resists the temptation of seeking easy, immediate solutions because doing so removes the problem as a resource for assisting in the solution of other problems. The latter tries to keep the process going looking for better and better overall solutions until through trial and error a scenario is developed that maximizes the performance of the whole as well as the parts. The latter is the strategy of sustainability.

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Further scenario building work on the Cairo sites will explicate – if not all – then a reasonable cross section of possible outcomes pursuing different logics and different ideas following the categories listed above. This approach is amenable to both systemic diagramming as well as systems modeling which is an approach that will also be pursued. This scenario building approach will certainly identify and follow the implications of a number of very negative yet quite possible scenarios (business as usual - nothing is done – Hammam is demolished through neglect,) some positive but far from sustainable scenarios ( Hammam is nicely restored and becomes an upper middle class health club), and attempts will be made to construct at least one sustainability oriented scenario (Hammam is restored, becomes a working Hammam with updated protocols and services serving all the neighborhood, becoming the locus of civil society processes and services, triggering physical, economic and social redevelopment of the neighborhood, becoming the locus for sustainability oriented industries and jobs, etc.). It is important to develop a variety of scenarios for each Hammam from the most probable to the most desirable, from the most negative to the least unsustainable. It will be an important contribution to advancing the scientific aspect of the HAMMAM project and presents the unique opportunity of engaging in the process of exploring social, ecological, and economic sustainability, through the development of the systems modeling of sustainability oriented multiple scenario building.

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There are two different foci of the Hammam project and it will sometimes be important to distinguish between the two. In all cases the research team will be assessing and making preliminary recommendations for the renovation or restoration of the case study Hammams. Beyond that and depending upon the local conditions and context, the researchers will extend their findings and recommendations into the social-cultural, economic, ecological and built environment-public space aspects of the local situation, guided by the principles of sustainability. Because each Hammam is in a very different context, the findings and recommendations for each will likely be quite different. But the research will also be looking for common characteristics among the seven Hammams and their disposition. The first focus will have the researchers deal with each Hammam individually with the different experts trying to maximize the quality of the outcomes from their own disciplinary perspective and then attempt the more difficult part, which is to attempt to further increase the quality of the outcomes through integration, collaboration and sustainability oriented scenario building together with experts from the other disciplines. The strength of this approach is that it builds success upon success – increasing quality upon quality. The development of a restoration proposal with input from the different experts will be the starting point of a successful project. As the experts develop their own discipline specific mini-scenarios the quality will increase. As the researchers come together to develop macro scenarios – whether it is a single desired sustainability oriented scenario or a collection of multiple scenarios, the quality of the project outcomes will reach yet a higher level.

But from a research standpoint the project will go beyond even this level of quality. The project will be dealing with case studies in six different countries. Part of the reason for this is that from a scientific perspective it will be important to develop both the processes of reconstructing the Hammam as both a cultural artifact and a reinvigorated living institution in the Islamic city, but also to develop a scientific design process involving sustainability oriented scenario building as the means to accomplish both the physical restoration as well as to invigorate civil society processes. It will be important not to loose the realization of this latter scientific goal in the more immediate goal of Hammam reconstruction. It is important the HAMMAM project, in addition to the realization of excellent restoration reports also advances the state of the art of sustainability oriented scenario building.

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Cairenes make many uses for public space and public life in public space is a vital feature of local culture. Whether the available public space is suited to those uses and needs is quite another question. It must be the case that the times, customs and forces that have shaped public space as we find it today are rather different form the needs that we find today. To be sure Cairo today is an agglomeration of many different urban fabrics and structures assembled in many different eras. Because they are rather fixed and because many of these structures are valued artifacts from the past and because there are few resources to change them, for the changes that do occur a response to the needs and uses of public space from all evidence must be a rather low priority. Yet in the Bab el Sharia street the use of the limited available public space is intense and vibrant. However because the available space is clearly inadequate for all the uses that the local residents would put it to, any new introduction of well designed public space as an extension of the existing space of the street would be highly appreciated and well utilized. This would be particularly true if such space provided a serene relief from the intensity of the street. Such a gift to the neighborhood is well within the realm of possibility for both Cairo Hammams in the form of development on their roofs and unused adjacent spaces which seem to be part of the Hammam property. In order for a scenario building process to go ahead with a sense of reality it is useful that there be already available solution space that already belongs to the problem as fuel and incentive for such speculation. The Hammam roofs and their adjacent spaces can provide an excellent starting point for extending the “problem” from the given, i.e. the restoration study for the Hammam as a closed problem, to a modest extension which would now include the development of the Hammam site as well. Because the Hammams are so often almost invisible in the urban fabric as it is experienced and only flower as beautiful flows of interior volumes, any exterior manifestation that ties them visually and experientially to the spaces of the neighborhood would be a great contribution. A “Hammam Park” or it’s equivalent as a place to sit, a place for shade, a place to have tea or play Backgammon, as a playground, a garden, a recycling center, an economic development center, a sustainability oriented technology education, or distribution center, or any other public or semi-public function or activity that would both encourage civil society processes and sustainability oriented development – or just improve the quality of life or raise the self image of the neighborhood, would be a gift to the neighborhood as well as giving the Hammam an altogether new and favorable image. From a strictly architectural/urbanistic point of view, it would give the Hammam an exterior image and an exterior presence in the neighborhood – something it badly needs. It would also give the Hammam a spatial and conceptual continuity with the neighborhood, which will also be most helpful. Using the roof is a scenario proposition that will immediately extricate specialist concerns, which could easily become concentrated in the interior Hammam. By taking the discussion to its physical presence in the neighborhood it will also be useful in activating other larger concerns in the social, environmental and economic realms as well.

In the case of the Tanbali, there will be several scenarios that will assume that the long open space that has been exposed by the demolition of the buildings south of the line of the old wall, will now become available for a variety of uses. One assumption of course is that all of that space will become a road, which of course will also be considered, but as we have seen this may not be its most likely future. These different starting assumptions will likely generate rather different future images.

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