SPARK

Project idea

SPARK is a media hub for climate information located in Abu Qir, Alexandria. This project proposes an architectural response to the urgent global challenge of climate change, particularly its impact on coastal cities through rising sea levels. Located in Alexandria, Egypt, one of the Mediterranean’s most vulnerable urban coastlines, the project aims to become a dynamic platform for public awareness, environmental education, and real-time data exchange, and branding Alexandria as the global model for coastal cities.

The core idea is to merge architecture, technology, and resilience through an integrated system where light becomes the medium of knowledge. By utilizing Li-Fi (Light Fidelity) for data transmission, the building transcends conventional function, becoming an intelligent infrastructure that communicates environmental data through light. This directly supports the project's thematic concept of "enlightenment through data."

Set within a post-disaster awareness context, the hub functions as a lighthouse of information, broadcasting critical climate data, housing immersive VR exhibitions, and supporting innovation labs for sustainable solutions. Its spatial organization encourages engagement between citizens, researchers, and international institutions, offering an adaptable, future-proofed architectural language grounded in sustainability, digital interactivity, and public empowerment.

The project's goals include: Raising public awareness of climate risks through interactive, accessible media, Providing real-time environmental data and simulations for disaster preparedness, Supporting interdisciplinary research and innovation related to climate resilience, Creating a new typology of educational public architecture rooted in sustainability.

Project description

SPARK consists of multiple zones.
1. Social Media Zone: a dynamic spaces featuring modular media studios that allow users and content creators to create short form content related to environmental awareness, where it includes co-working spaces, workshops and live-streaming spaces.
2. Cinematic Production Zone: this zone includes immersive cinematic halls, and cinematic production studios focusing on climate related documentaries and movies, VR studios where users can experience the impact of climate change and sea-level rise through interactive storytelling.
3. Broadcasting and Newsroom Zone: A fully functional broadcast production facility for climate-focused journalism. It includes newsrooms, control rooms, editing suites, and live broadcasting studios.
4. Climate Data Exhibition: A public data experience center that translates complex climate data into engaging, interactive dashboards. Real-time data from global and local sensors is visualized through touch walls and projection systems, powered by Li-Fi, offering visitors live insights into environmental trends.
5. Underwater Climate Data Center: A flood-resilient submerged facility that hosts climate monitoring servers. Its location utilizes seawater for natural cooling, promoting sustainability. Fiber optics and Li-Fi enable fast, electromagnetic-interference-free data transfer throughout the building.
6. Lighthouse Observatory Tower: An iconic vertical element symbolizing "Enlightenment through Data." It offers panoramic sea views, serves as a public lookout, and acts as a vertical core for Li-Fi data transmission. Educational exhibitions occupy intermediate floors, tying data awareness to spatial experience.

Technical information

The project adopts a hybrid structural system combining box structure and steel trusses for wide-span zones such as the media and cinematic halls, vierendeel trusses for wide span media exhibitions and reinforced concrete vertical cores that ensure both structural stability and efficient service integration. These cores also act as conduits for the Li-Fi infrastructure, enabling high-speed, light-based data transmission throughout the building.

The façade features low-emissivity smart glass and ETFE panels, designed to optimize natural light, support Li-Fi signal transparency, and regulate indoor temperature. Renewable energy systems, such as photovoltaic glass panels, are integrated seamlessly into the architecture, a double skin facade that consists of perforated metal skin and green walls to enhance air quality and thermal comfort, and real-time climate dashboards facades that utilizes LED transparent screens to broadcast the current real-time climate data for users.

An underwater climate data center utilizes seawater for passive cooling of the servers, while also symbolizing the rising sea level narrative. The entire building operates through a smart system of real-time climate monitoring, interactive media dashboards, and energy-efficient technologies, all interconnected by the Li-Fi-enabled vertical light cores.

The landscape and outdoor spaces includes outdoor cinema that showcases the latest climate related documentaries, outdoor production studios that includes green screen studios for outdoor cinematic shooting, outdoor library and research sea meter for monitoring the current sea water level.