This project is situated on Warraq Island along the Nile River in Cairo, where the fishing industry is diminishing due to pollution and eviction. Hundreds of illiterate fishermen are in dire need of education and career changes.

Inspired by the material synthesis developed for an artificial joint artefact, the proposal is an amphibious cross-over between a fishing village and an education centre, where fishermen fish during high tides and attend language classes during low tides. For fishermen to become cultural ambassadors, the hybrid programme requries spatial quality change via multi-materiality and tides. An envisioned key communal space would be a concrete hull with reclaimed timber enclosures that opens and closes to shift from a boat-launching pool to an exhibition hall according to the tides.

The proposal transforms the local fishing industry by reinterpreting Cairo’s vernacular fishing boats, the Felucca, into educational spaces. The building reclaims shipwrecks (and barnacles) as building materials, formworks, and geometries to foreground the Nile’s motif with light and textural expressions. The Hull is a production-education hybrid with narrative-driven tectonics.