A Crate Idea

Who said that a traditional Egyptian breadbasket can’t be an attractive piece of furniture for your home or office? With the introduction of Studio Meem’s first creations, traditional furniture and decorative art have competition. Launched in 2011 by Manar Moursi, Studio Meem is creating a visual identity for furniture that is of a “distinctive Egyptian character.” The Off the Gireed collection features furniture made from palm midribs, the sturdy base of palm leaves often used to make crates. “The main idea for the project is to work with different artisans in different fields. It started with palm fiber,” Moursi explains, “but it can be other crafts and reinterpreting into modern objects that can be used either for smaller products, home accessories or furniture or even architecture.” Studio Meem’s focus on the sustainable use of natural, social and economic resources is a natural offshoot of Moursi’s background. Drawing on her dual Masters degree in Architecture and Urban Policy from Princeton University in 2008, she has worked on projects ranging from planning satellite cities in Kuwait to the interior design for Nile Cruise boats. She also worked with architect Omar Rabie on a design for a disaster relief center in Istanbul that was short listed for the ThyssenKrupp Elevator Architecture Award in 2011. Moursi also writes on urban issues and some of her work has appeared in Thresholds, Magaz and Al Masry El Youm. “The issue of preserving agricultural land for me is a larger policy issue,” Moursi explains, “but my small contribution to it is to appreciate what we already have culturally and artisanally as well as environmentally speaking.” Moursi notes that in Egypt, there are currently 20 million palm trees and that part of the pruning process is to remove the gireed (palm midrib). But lately gireed crates are being replaced with plastic crates. “It’s a craft that already existed. [… The gireed] can be used for so many things because it is something local,” she says. For Studio Meem’s first collection, the architect worked with local artisans to use palm crate panels to give furniture a fresh, contemporary look. Among the pieces are shelving units, footstools and bases for glass-topped tables. Journey to the Showroom In the beginning, a lack of funds meant Moursi had to work on her own, buying old gireed crates from fruit and vegetable sellers and recycling them into furniture. A grant from the British Council enabled her to have local artisans custom-make the gireed panels in non-traditional dimensions and shapes for more diverse pieces. “It was a very tough journey to find these guys,” the Zamalek-based designer recalls. She started at Ard El-Lewa near Mohandiseen, then was directed across the river to Port Said Street and Boulaq. From there, she says, she took a tuk-tuk from Boulaq to Nomrous, an area in southern Giza, stopping at villages along the way. Once she found the artisans, she worked with them to develop and refine the designs. Some of the pieces, explains Moursi, use an actual fruit crate to create a bookshelf or footstool. Others use an actual bread crate, which is thinner than the fruit crate. In other cases, the midrib pieces themselves were assembled in new designs to make lamps or mashrabeyas. “It tells a story of something you see from the streets everyday,” she says, “and it is so nice to have as an object to remind you of what you see that is also so different and fresh.” Moursi says that her collaboration with the artisans exposed them and her to new worlds and perspectives, and she recalls how shocked the men were that she was a woman coming to their villages on her own. She had some eye-opening experiences as well. “The interactions with them are part of the most amazing things about this project,” she explains. “It was during the elections, the revolution and for me to hear their opinions — it was interesting to hear their stories, socially, culturally, educationally, economically, from all sorts of perspectives.” In fact, she continues, “the people I found easiest to deal with were the artisans, who people consider the least educated. On the contrary, they gave me the easiest time in treatment and in punctuality, they were the most professional in terms of time, the most honest in terms of prices and the most open in terms of experimentation. The higher you go up, the worse it gets in my experience.” While she declined to elaborate with specific incidents, Moursi says she encountered problems with patent infringement, asserting that design patents in Egypt are not really respected. Despite this, Moursi is still very positive about her project and feels Studio Meem’s first collection was a valuable learning experience. The designer envisions the bigger picture for Studio Meem, hoping to mobilize human capabilities and skills at the grassroots level. Moursi has already received proposals to partner with universities in Europe to create workshops bringing European and Egyptian students and designers together to use gireed as an architectural material. Moreover, she and her architecture partner Rabie are thinking of using palm crates and ollas as part of a tent-like space where bloggers can meet. “I am hoping this project will have a mushroom effect on young designers wanting to collaborate with other artisans to create new things, to generate some kind of economic viability. I feel this is the time to work with these people and this is the time to look at our own resources and see what could be done with that and create our own projects.”