TAREK SHAMMA'S EXQUISITE HOME IN CAIRO

AUSTERE ARCHITECTURE, LONG ROWS OF WINDOWS SOFTENED SHAMMA'S WITH BOUNTIFUL, LAYERED INTERIORS—THE EGYPTIAN- EXQUISITE BORN ARCHITECT’S COUNTRYSIDE HOME Is CRAFTED WITH PRECISION AS WELL AS SOFTNESS AND INTIMACY.

- 

It's a 30-minute-or-so drive from the centre of Cairo to the family home of architect Tarek Shamma; the city’s energy—the cacophony of life pouring through its traffic-filled streets—is behind us. The distance is enough to disconnect. Here, the roads are darker, and after several days in one of the world’s most vibrant cities, a pleasing quiet begins to settle in. It is one of the things Shamma loves most about the house’s location.

His parents purchased the land as newlyweds, but because it was so far then from Zamalek—where he grew up—for a while, they did nothing with it. The initial desire for a weekend getaway transformed into a dream of building a generational home for their children. Shamma had gone on to London to study at the Architectural Association (AA), and his sister had left as well. It was around then that he recalls going on a boat cruise on Lake Nasser (a large reservoir in southern Egypt) with his aunt, where he met Lebanese architect Antoine Maamari with his wife and son (who was also studying at the AA). “He was much older but they were fun and cool and a bit eccentric. I came back saying, ‘I found the architect’.”