• Eliminate overcrowding and institutional fragmentation inherent in AUC's downtown Cairo campuses, which divide the academic enterprise into multiple locations
• Provide modern classrooms, laboratories, lecture halls and other essential facilities to support current and future teaching methods, curricula and educational technologies
• Improve campus life for students, faculty and staff by creating a campus designed to foster interaction and create community
• Enhance AUC's contributions to Egypt and the region

Construction

The new campus is being built using 24,000 tons of reinforcing steel, as well as 115,000 square meters of stone, marble, granite cladding and flooring. More than 7,000 workers were working two shifts on the construction site in November 2007.

Sandstone for the walls of campus buildings is all from a single quarry in Kom Ombo, 50 kilometers north of Aswan. The stone arrived by truck in giant muti-ton blocks, which were cut and shaped for walls, arches and other uses at a stone-cutting plant built on the site. The walls were constructed according to energy management systems which reduce campus air conditioning and heating energy use by at least 50 percent as compared to conventional construction methods.

More than 75 percent of the stone in the Alumni Wall that circles the campus was recycled from stone that would otherwise have been discarded as waste after cutting.

A 1.6-kilometer service tunnel that runs beneath the central avenue along the spine of AUC’s campus is a key element making its overall pedestrian nature possible. Services accessible via the tunnel include all deliveries and pickups from campus buildings, fiber optic and technology-related wiring, major electrical conduits and plumbing for hot water, domestic water and chilled water for air conditioning. All other pipes for sewage, natural gas, irrigation and fire fighting are buried on the campus, outside the tunnel, around buildings as needed for their purposes.

Principal Meeting Spaces

Bartlett Plaza
The 150-meter-long central university plaza will be the principal outdoor location for AUC’s largest events such as commencements. It can easily seat 5,000 people or more.

Campus Center
Includes the 1,400-seat Bassily Hall, which is the main auditorium for the new campus, the 200-seat Moataz Al-Alfi Hall, three lecture halls, one with 150 seats and two with 100 seats, as well as two meeting rooms with 100 seats and two with 50 seats.

Mostafa Core Academic Center
Includes the 225-seat Mansour Group Lecture Hall.

Performing and Visual Arts Building
Includes the 300-seat Paul and Charlotte Corddry Theater, and the 100-seat black-box theater.

Administration Building
Includes eight conference rooms; the largest with 40 seats.

Athletic Complex
Includes the 2,000-seat indoor Arena Main Court where 1,500 additional seats can be added to the court floor for a total capacity of 3,500.  It also includes the martial-arts arena which seats 200-300 in a flexible event space. Outdoors, the track-and-field and soccer stadium also seats 2,000.

Ceremonial Entrance
Includes an outdoor amphitheater, which seats 300, between AUC Park and the Bruce L. Ludwig Family Square.

Buildings and Indoor Spaces

The total footprint of AUC’s New Cairo campus is 260 acres, almost 29 times bigger than the acreage the university occupies at multiple locations in downtown Cairo, which amounts to nine acres. The total built environment of the new campus is almost three times larger than AUC’s current space.  The footprint of all buildings is 14 acres and 120 acres are available for future expansion. Most buildings are three stories high; however, the Dr. and Mrs. Elias K. Hebeka Bookstore is two-stories; the library is five-stories; and the Mostafa Core Academic Center and the Administration Building, are four stories.

The entire campus is designed following the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Wireless access to the Internet is available everywhere on the campus. Indoors, there are:

• 136 classrooms
• 145 science and engineering labs
• 55 non-science labs and studios
• 727 faculty offices
• 53,000 indoor light fixtures
• 27 elevators, eight designated for the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) passengers
• 5,801 doors
• 1,200 variable air volume and temperature controls to adjust heat and AC

Landscaping

All of the all trees, shrubs and plants — with the exception of the date palms — were propagated and grown at AUC’s Desert Development Center. Many of the trees shade the campus’s 2,000-plus parking places. The total number of date palms is 1,216 and there are a total number of 6,970 trees. In addition, there are 27 fountains, pools and water features.