Client’s Requirements

The existing Children’s Museum in Heliopolis, Cairo including the gardens, grounds and conservation offices, were to be demolished and replaced with a new state of the art facility that was themed around ‘the children of the Nile’.  The new museum was to be primarily an education experience for children between the ages of 6 and 18 and included a high level of interaction.  The new museum was to handle two large groups of children (circa 70 of mixed ages) at any one time, with internal and external picnic facilities.

Silcock Leedham’s Contribution

Silcock Leedham’s expertise in cultural and ‘design-led’ projects resulted in an appointment as Building Services Consulting Engineers by the Presidential Family of Egypt.

Silcock Leedham was appointed for the detailed design in addition to specialist dynamic thermal and solar computer modelling, fire engineering and building acoustics.

We coordinated the input of AV and specialist interactive designers based on the internal museum fit out design carried out by Kraemer of Indianapolis associated with the Indianapolis museum of childhood and filmatic involvement from National Geographic.

We also developed a low energy building cooling system based on deep water boreholes and worked closely with the architect in establishing the thermal characteristics of the space frame dome.

Added Value / Unique Selling Points

Our unique approach to capturing the needs and aspirations of multi-headed client groups was tested on this project.  With such a high profile client, global involvement was inevitable with contributors and advisers from all over the world. Our approach was to ‘stitch together’ all the technical needs of the specialists.

The museum was designed as a centre for learning, with the engineering services being part of the experience.  As such, the building has been designed as a carbon neutral space utilising ground water for passive cooling, roof mounted PV’s, vertical axis helical wind turbines and close coupled CO2 cooling systems.

We were recently awarded the prestigious Museums and Heritage 2012 International award for the work that we did on this commission in conjunction with London based Mallinson Architects