"The house was built with stone block recovered from the demolition of the traditional tower houses in the old city, which the client unsuccessfully tried to save. Rather than using the familiar dome over the majlis here, the architect felt that an octagonal shukshieka would be more regionally appropriate, and the use of this particular element carries over into a larger house designed in Tabuk soon afterward. In the Tabuk example, two dynamically offset qa'as, linked by a passageway, serve to anchor the plan. This passageway, in turn, serves as a spine that spans between an open, central courtyard on one side and a large, public majlis with its related dining area on the other."
Source:
Richards, J.M., I. Serageldin, & D Rastorfer. 1985. Hassan Fathy. In Mimar: Architects in the third world. Concept Media, plates 79-87.
Steele, James. 1989. The Hassan Fathy Collection. A Catalogue of Visual Documents at the Aga Khan Award for Architecture. Bern, Switzerland: The Aga Khan Trust for Culture, 52.
