To the average visitor, parts of AUC's new campus site elicit a feeling of awe and excitement as cranes, pumps and bulldozers hum a harmonious tune. Structures are finally starting to take shape on the 260-acre project that began after the university signed a LE 850 million contract.
The campus will be built over a total area of 165,000 square meters and will use 24,000 tons of reinforcing steel, as well as 115,000 square meters of stone, marble, granite cladding and flooring. The five-floor library, which has a total area of 19,000 square meters, will be the first building completed, scheduled for Spring 2007. Buildings to follow include the performance and visual arts theater and the School of Science and Engineering. The university will move to the new site during the summer months of 2008.
Scattered throughout the site are steel rebar workshops, where foundation steel reinforcement is prepared. Construction workers place an average of 50 to 280 cubic meters of concrete and steel in the building foundations.
Workers undertaking the project regard the New Cairo site as an ambitious enterprise, one that has generated quite a thrill. "This is one of the biggest construction projects in the country alongside the building of the new Cairo airport and the Sharm El Sheikh airport," said Tamer Nasser, civil engineer and site inspector.
Download A City for
Learning