Visiting Bibliotheca Alexandrina and King Mariout Hilton Hotel
Pharos University in Alexandria is highly committed to linking academic education with practical reality and developing the capabilities of its Architectural Engineering Department students. Within this context, senior students (9th semester) conducted a field visit to the Conference Center at Bibliotheca Alexandrina and the King Mariout Hilton Hotel for the EA511-Architectural Design (7) course.
The visit began with a tour of the Conference Center, accompanied by the Public Relations Manager and numerous Center’s engineers. Students learned about the general composition of the building, the structural system, movement axes, and various services, as well as the gradation and contents of the conference halls. Students also familiarized themselves with the control and organizers’ rooms, and the administration offices. The main circulation axes for easy entry and exit, emergency exits, escape stairs, and movement means in different sections were also explained.
The students then moved to the Hilton Hotel, where they were welcomed by the Public Relations management and the Chief Engineer, who explained the hotel’s architectural design, room and service distribution, and functional relationships between the various components. The tour included examining different room types and their interior design, in terms of functional distribution and space relationships, in addition to studying essential and supporting services such as restaurants, meeting halls, recreational areas, corridors, and staff service areas. The visit also covered a detailed explanation of the functional relationships between the different blocks in the hotel and how vertical and horizontal circulation is organized to facilitate movement between facilities while maintaining guest privacy and ease of service.
The visit was supervised by course professors, namely: Prof. Dr. Ahmed Monir Soliman, Prof. Dr. Alaa Elalfy, Prof. Dr. Ghada Ragheb, along with teaching assistants, namely: T. A. Mirna Nabil, T. A. Mohamed Shaaban, T. A. Naglaa Youssef, and Eng. Rodeina El Bastawy.
