ABSTRACT
This chapter explores local people's perception of the idea of home, while it investigates what it means to the architect in professional terms and whether the institutions' policies promote it or not. Limited involvement of the architect in the Old Cairo hawari is due to three reasons: the high restrictions of building codes for such a low rise area, limited affordability for the owner, and the presence of an existing low cost reference for local architecture before his eyes. Physically, hawari are a combination between two entities, valuable monuments that are models of medieval architecture, and a majority of less valuable structures that represent contemporary forms of compact living with loads of problems on their adequacy and sufficiency. However, the contest between local residents from one side and architects and planning authorities from the other side is arguably of similar significance. While architects and institutions are participating in producing homes, residents actually reproduce it in their own terms.
