FLOWER HAT | EGYPT

NOURAN EL MARSAFY

The world is rapidly heating and in Cairo, concrete and cars are taking over. It wasn’t always like this. Now resident Nouran Marsafy is doing what she can to bring back the leafier Cairo she remembers.

When Nouran Marsafy was a small child she would stand under the shade of a jasmine tree and wait for the bus that would take her to school in the sprawling Egyptian capital of Cairo.

As someone who is still sensitive to the sun, she appreciated the refuge the shade provided. It was the first piece of nature that Nouran connected with and years later when the tree was cut down she felt the loss acutely.

Even further down the road, when Nouran was studying architecture and urban planning at university she remembered sheltering under that fateful tree and how her experience could help the whole city, which had somehow become even hotter due to global heating and poor urban planning.

Cairo has always been huge, but it’s still expanding.

“There are new urban expansions in the desert and inter-building spaces are really tight. This increases the impact of the urban heat island, making these places really hot,” she said.

Now as an architect and urban planner, Nouran is using her influence to provide re-leaf efforts across her home city to help make the searing heat manageable.

Object of Memory

Nouran Marsafy got this hat when she was seven. It still reminds her of a time when Cairo was greener and through her career she is dedicated to making her memories a reality once again.