Research — Makeen Office
A benchmark is established by measurement before anything is built on it. Research is how Makeen sets that datum — behavioural mapping, programming, and participatory method used to establish what a project must resolve before its form is committed. It is not an addition to the practice. It is its founding competence.
Certainty of brief
Is this the right thing to build?
The largest risk in a project is not building badly. It is building the wrong thing precisely. Research resolves what a building must actually do before its form is committed.
Certainty of execution
Will it be built as designed?
Integrated engineering and BIM carry that intent through documentation and construction without loss. See Services.
Four instruments, applied according to what a commission needs to resolve. This is a certainty of method rather than of local familiarity — familiarity does not travel, but an evidence-based process produces the same rigour on unfamiliar ground as on home ground.
Method 01
Systematic observation of how a space is used across time — movement, dwell, appropriation, avoidance. Reveals the difference between how a place is meant to work and how it does.
Behavioural mapping · Observation grids · Time-sampling
Will this space be used the way we assume?
Method 02
Field-derived space programmes built from facility inventories, organisational charting, and workflow analysis — so area schedules reflect how an organisation actually operates rather than a generic standard.
Inventory sheets · Space programme sheets · Organisation charting
What does this client genuinely need built?
Method 03
Structured engagement that brings residents, operators, and authorities into the design process early — surfacing conflict while it is still inexpensive, and building the consent a project needs to proceed.
Focus groups · In-depth interviews · Stakeholder workshops
Who must agree before this can be built?
Method 04
Survey design, content analysis, categorisation, and theoretical model building — translating field material into diagrams and findings that a design team and a client can both act on.
Surveys · Content analysis · Categorisation · Diagrammatic modelling
What does the evidence actually support?
Ongoing enquiry produced inside the practice — site and typology studies, material investigation, and competition research carried out alongside commissioned work.
// Studio research is being prepared for publication.
// Candidate entries: Jabal Al-Weibdeh Overlook — inhabited scarp
// typology study; mineral material palette investigation; Amman
// commercial-typology survey.
Commissioned research conducted 2011–2013 with Shehayeb Consult for international development and heritage bodies. This is where the method was formed — the founding competence the practice was built on, and the discipline it still applies to every commission.
Sector study within the Urban Regeneration Project for Historic Cairo (URHC), examining how commercial and productive activity sustains itself inside dense historic fabric — and what regeneration policy risks displacing.
Theoretical and empirical assessment of Egyptian housing policy and its effect on marginalised populations, combining policy analysis with field evidence.
Sector study under the URHC project, within the Safeguarding of Cultural Heritage in Egypt programme — mapping how community activity organises itself spatially across the historic city.
Design and implementation of the qualitative baseline for Al-Darb Al-Ahmar, complementing the 2010 quantitative survey and forming the evidential basis for planning Phase III of the ADAA Revitalization Project.
On-site research assistant for a participatory design thinking programme delivered to local experts from the University of Nairobi, NGOs, UN-HABITAT staff, and Nairobi City Council — introducing participatory method into city planning strategy.
Conference papers and invited talks, 2011–2013. Authorship and contributory roles are listed separately.
Authored & co-authored
Shehayeb, D. & Al-Helo, A. (2011, October). Innovative Participatory Approach: Revisiting the Cultural Basis of Participation. Round-table 2, “Sustainable urban projects: the necessity of a participative approach” — ECO-CITIES Forum, Marseille, France, 11–12 October 2011.
Shehayeb, D. & Al-Helo, A. (2011, May). Informal Areas: A Shame or a Potential? The Quest for Identity — Understanding the City in the Arab World. Invited speaker, “City Debates 2011: The Planning and Urban Design of Cities in the Arab World” — Beirut, Lebanon, 12–13 May 2011.
Al-Helo, A. (2011, April). Identity Dynamics of People and Place in Informal Areas. Seminar: “Searching for Common Grounds: Participatory planning practices from France, Brazil, Egypt and Turkey” — Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, Faculty of Architecture, Istanbul, 19 April 2011.
Contributory role
Shehayeb, D. (2013). Quality of Life and Urban Prosperity. Background paper towards Chapter 2.3, State of the World’s Cities 2012/2013: Prosperity of Cities. Nairobi: UN-HABITAT. Role: qualitative analysis of background reports across 50 cities.
Shehayeb, D. (2012, September). An Integrated Approach to Public Space: Roles of Public Space — Lessons from Cairo. SUD-Net Session on Quality Public Space for Sustainable Urban Development, 6th World Urban Forum — Naples, Italy, 3–7 September 2012. Role: content preparation and presentation material.
Shehayeb, D. (2012, September). An Integrated Approach to Achieve Safer Cities. International Forum on Safety in Cities, Global Network on Safer Cities, 6th World Urban Forum — Naples, Italy, 3–7 September 2012. Role: content preparation and presentation material.
Bodies and academic programmes the research has been conducted with or for.
UNESCO World Heritage Centre
Commissioning body
UN-HABITAT
Commissioning body
Aga Khan Development Network
Commissioning body
CARE International
Commissioning body
ETH Studio Basel
Academic collaboration
ENSA Paris-la Villette
Academic collaboration
Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University
Academic collaboration
Shehayeb Consult
Research practice
Research is not sold separately from design. It is the first stage of every commission — the reason certainty can be promised at all.
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