Cairo Capital Park

Location

Overview

Cairo Capital Park runs through the spine of Egypt’s New Administrative Capital and aims to serve as the cultural, social and environmental heart of this new smart, sustainable city in the desert.

Alongside a variety of gardens embracing three eras of Egyptian history (Pharaonic, Classical and Islamic), the new park contains a series of programmed destinations along its 10km length. These include major event spaces, cultural and sporting destinations, and family focused amenity spaces to enhance and promote wellbeing for all at all ages.

Services

Technology Infrastructure

Architecture and Design

Contract Administration and Construction Supervision

Markets

Civic and Commercial

Cities

The project

Building resilient infrastructure, combating desertification, and promoting wellbeing for all is at the heart of Cairo's new Capital Park, the key to Dar’s masterplan design for Egypt’s New Administrative Capital. Twice the size of New York City’s Central Park, Capital Park will become one of the largest sustainable parks in the world. The landscape masterplan prepared by Dar’s London and Cairo teams has developed from concept design through to construction information and site supervision.

It was important to break down the impacts of the new park on the existing landscape and ensure Dar’s designs created a positive environmental gain for each aspect of Cairo's new green lung. These areas include:

Urban Ecosystems: protecting local ecosystems on site while developing the park’s softscape by creating habitats for native species to support flora and fauna, and using xeriscape landscaping to reduce or eliminate the need for watering.
Material use and solid waste: effective and safe recycling and composting measures include segregated waste bins across all areas frequented by visitors to avoid any health hazards on site or at off-site disposal facilities.
Stormwater: a resilient stormwater management network (including pipes and culverts) guards against local flooding - which is particularly important given the park’s location within the New Administrative Capital.
Water: there are very few grassed areas, which reduces overall demand for irrigation, regardless of its sources, and supports both water security and water efficiency.
Microclimate: buildings and planting are sited to make the most of favourable wind and air movement, discourage airborne dust, and improve outdoor thermal comfort.
Energy: using efficient outdoor lighting reduces the park’s overall energy demand.
Mobility: providing drinking water, shaded areas, frequent resting areas, and appropriate walking surfaces throughout the park should encourage active mobility via walking, cycling, pedal-assisted e-bikes, kick-scooters, etc, with all their associated health, social, and commercial benefits.

Five Observation Towers, concealing lighting rigs and other SMART infrastructure, act as meeting points and landmarks for the 10km long landscape, so visitors can orientate themselves while they’re enjoying the lakes, cafes, galleries, restaurants, and playgrounds, both during the day and at night. Dar’s Landscape Design team took inspiration for the Towers’ shapes and proportions from ancient Egyptian culture, Luxor Temple, and the Ankh symbol of eternal life in Ancient Egypt.

At a glance:

10 km long/440 ha urban park
Wide range of amenities and destinations as the main city park and green lung
Variety of gardens, uses and activities
Indoor arboretum, country club and wellness complex, boating lake and waterside restaurant, sculpture garden and art pavilion, fishing pond and picnic area, urban games complex and box park, event lawn and outdoor cinema, children learning gardens and play centre, library and reading gardens.

Work

Cairo Capital Park