CLUSTER (Cairo Lab for Urban Studies, Training and Environmental Research) in collaboration with THISS Studio and Orient Productions have completed an independent outdoor community arts space in Cairo, located in Giza’s Agouza Children’s Park, one of the city’s few remaining publicly accessible green spaces.
Project Name: Pergola
Studio Name: THISS Studio and CLUSTER
Location: Giza, Cairo, Egypt
Completion: September 2025
Gross internal floor area: 84 square metres
Images: Georges & Samuel Mohsen
Titled Pergola and perched close to the Nile river front, the bright red, ten-metre tall structure offers a new beating heart for an emerging cultural scene in Cairo.
Inspired by public bandstands and similar sheltered spaces, Pergola addresses the increasing gentrification and commercialisation of Cairo’s public space and neighbourhood parks, offering an alternative approach to urban development anchored in art and cultural programmes. The project positions design as a tool of resistance and preservation as unchecked development, often in favour of foreign investment, is increasingly at odds with cultural preservation and community spaces.
Conceived as an extension of CLUSTER’s Along-the-Line project, a modular public installation in the same location, the project continues the organisation’s efforts to reclaim contested urban sites.
Pergola will open to the public on the 10th of October as part of a city-wide cultural arts programme. The structure enacts a form of activism through its dual ambition: to reclaim public space through community engagement while promoting sustainable construction practices.
Pergola’s dynamic, adaptable design allows it to easily transform between active and passive functions. Complete with lighting rigs and speakers, it will host performances, concerts, film screenings and community events, complete with a compact and secure backstage area for performers.
On days without programming the cantilevered canopy provides shaded seating, functioning much like the traditional bandstand, with the addition of removable swings to ensure all ages of the local community feel a sense of ownership of the structure. It could also potentially be used for community-organised events such as birthdays and graduation ceremonies.
Agouza park itself is an example of the city’s struggle for public space playing out. Located directly adjacent to the 6th of October Bridge, one of Cairo’s main highways, where over the past decade, the
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green space has been gradually encroached upon. Large billboards and advertisements have been erected in the park facing the highway, sparking growing anxiety that the park may vanish altogether.
Placed directly beside the heavily-trafficked bridge on the west bank of the Nile, the theatre’s location is inseparable from the project mission. Pergola was designed to be deliberately conspicuous amongst the vast noise of hoardings. Its vivid, fire-engine red form towers at 10 metres high, easily grabbing the attention of the many vehicles that pass along Cairo’s arterial road.
Aside from its steel frame, Pergola is built almost exclusively from recycled plastic waste collected from the Nile and construction sites sourced by three pioneering Egyptian suppliers for plastic reuse: TileGreen, Reblox and VeryNile. The project is a direct response to Cairo’s acute waste mismanagement problem, it demonstrates viable large-scale material reuse in construction and brings the lifecycle of building materials into architectural conversation in the region.
As an outdoor theatre, Pergola will host a six month programme of free events curated by Orient Productions, built around the theme of sustainability. The programme is designed to engage the park’s existing community of children and families, strengthening their connection to the space, while also attracting new audiences beyond the park’s immediate neighbourhood. Through folklore music concerts, contemporary dance performances, clown shows, film screenings and more, Pergola will showcase local contemporary arts in all their forms. Framed by sustainability, the programme invites audiences to reflect on our place in an ever-changing world, consider how heritage informs the present, and critically examine the city and the ways we experience it.
CLUSTER previously collaborated with THISS Studio on a project in Karachi and enlisted the London architects to join the Pergola team, knowing they shared a clear agenda for sustainable design. Drawing on THISS Studio’s international design experience, including public realm projects such as PoliNations in Birmingham, and CLUSTER’s embedded local knowledge, the design emerged from a fluid exchange between the two practices.
The process began with a week-long workshop in Cairo, overseen by CLUSTER, that brought together community groups, students, local designers and park stakeholders. Through co-design, model-building and public consultations, the project’s direction was collectively shaped and developed over six months. For THISS Studio, the collaboration became a valuable case study in applying good material practice outside a European context, reframing it within Cairo’s cultural and urban realities.
This ongoing deference to community knowledge ensured the result was something to be embraced and used. The very fact that Pergola has been realised is a testament to the patience and planning invested in the project. Careful navigation of local structures and close collaboration with community partners were key, underscoring the importance of being led by local expertise.
