AUC Students Win Cemex Egypt's 2025 Sustainability Award for Modular Shelter

AUC Students Win Cemex Egypt’s 2025 Sustainability Award for Modular Shelter

A pupil platoon from the American University in Cairo( AUC) has won first place in the Construction Sustainability Competition 2025, an action organised in cooperation with Cemex Egypt. Their award- winning design, a modular casing system designed for temporary sanctum, demonstrates that low- carbon construction can also be largely affordable and practical. The design highlights how pupil invention and assiduity- academia hookups are vital for creating results to meet the critical environmental and social challenges within the construction sector.

The winning elderly thesis, named "Returning to Nature Deconstructable Housing with Biodegradable Accoutrements for harbors," was created by four AUC engineering scholars Kareem Fouad, Mohamed Batah, Mohamed Shatat, and Youssef Khairy. According to this, their design stood out for its clear operation, making sustainability accessible and economically feasible.

The Winning Design: Low-Cost and Low-Impact Housing

The core of the scholars' result is a modular sanctum designed for deconstruction and exercise. Unlike traditional structures, the system can be assembled, taken piecemeal, and dislocated to a different point. This indirect approach significantly reduces construction waste and extends the lifetime of accoutrements. The design's environmental impact is further reduced through the use of biodegradable structure accoutrements.

The combined design choices affect in a largely effective design. The scholars estimate their system can reduce the structure's embodied carbon — the total carbon emigrations associated with accoutrements and construction — by 40 to 50 per cent. Crucially, this environmental benefit is paired with a major profitable advantage, as the design is also projected to lower overall construction costs by roughly 40 per cent.

Fostering the Next Generation of Engineers

The competition was co-organised by the AUC Career Center and the Construction Engineering Department, with 23 elderly scholars sharing across six brigades. Each platoon worked on a thesis design diving crucial sustainability and adaptability issues in construction. By engaging directly with pupil originators, Cemex Egypt aims to support the development of unborn gift equipped to drive the assiduity toward further responsible practices.

A elderly superintendent from Cemex Egypt noted that the competition highlights how the coming generation of masterminds is prepared to deliver intelligent, sustainable, and affordable results. These results serve communities and contribute to a better future. The company stated it’s proud to support enterprise that promote designs which are environmentally, socially, and economically responsible.

A Model for Sustainable Industry Collaboration

This collaboration between a major structure accoutrements company and a leading academic institution serves as a practical model for assiduity- academia cooperation. For Cemex Egypt, supporting similar enterprise reinforces its commitment to advancing sustainable construction in the region. For the scholars, it provides a platform to transfigure academic proposition into a recognised, assiduity- reviewed design with real- world eventuality.

The construction sector encyclopedically faces mounting pressure to reduce its carbon footmark and material waste. systems like the AUC platoon's winning sanctum design point toward a further adaptable and indirect future for structure. They demonstrate that invention in sustainable construction can appear in the classroom, offering scalable ideas that balance ecological responsibility with profitable and social requirements.