The “Introduction to Urban Design” course at the Arab Academy for Science and Technology (AAST), introduced a co-tutoring process between Prof. Mona Abdel Wahab (Associate Professor, AAST) and Ahmed Zaazaa (Co-founder of 10 Tooba). The course project was an attempt to investigate potentials and solutions for the newly introduced open spaces in Heliopolis Neighbourhood. Three locations were proposed for redesign: Under the Bridge of Safir Square, The English School crossing, and Ismailia Square and its surrounding streets. The course project opened up discussions and raised questions about rights to public spaces, shared activities, place making and meanings of the city. Despite the specific online teaching conditions, the student’s outcomes were very promising and realistic which let the teaching staff envisage the potential for realization of the best course projects.

A two-week workshop and summer training were conducted to continue in-depth understanding of public spaces issues and investigate more solutions. The workshop and training aimed to reach the realization of the projects, through approvals, funding and implementations. The outcomes were promising and provided vital public spaces in a number of under graded, but essential public spaces in Heliopolis. Which encouraged to propose a model to create partnership between academia, professionals, NGOs and the government, bridges the gaps between science, practice, society and state, through opening channels with the municipality to present the ideas and advocate for implementation, which is targeted to happen in the near future.