An Architect Reimagines a University Campus, Making It Autism Friendly

Dublininquirer – June 2021

Struggles with an immigration status, or a second language yet to be mastered, are invisible factors affecting one’s experience of buildings, says architect Magda Mostafa.
Add neurodiversity into the mix, and a building’s design – whether it’s an airport, a university or refugee accommodation – can silently diminish somebody’s sense of well-being, she says.
“And, as designers, we can play a really big role in bridging that,” says Mostafa, who has contributed to the design of a centre for orphaned autistic children in Ramallah, a city in Palestine’s West Bank.

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Autism friendly design – an interview with Magda Mostafa

cities people love – August 2021

Why have you focused your career on autism friendly design?
I have been involved in the autism world for over twenty years and while my focus has remained on architecture, the building typologies I have worked on over the years have really evolved. The genesis of my involvement was in 2002 which was very early days in the autism awareness world and a time when we were seeing headlines of an ‘autism epidemic’ in the USA. But this wasn’t an increase in autism per se, it was just a better understanding of the diagnostic parameters which resulted in more children being identified as autistic.

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How Architecture Could Help Us Adapt to the Pandemic

New York Times – June 2020

In January, along with Bauman and Friedlaender, Sanders convened a group of experts, including Magda Mostafa, a Cairo-based architect and the author of “Autism ASPECTSS,” a set of design guidelines, to discuss ways to understand how people with autism feel about their surroundings. In May, they met again, along with researchers from the Center for Autism and Neurodiversity at Jefferson University Hospital in

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Access all areas: designing spaces and places for diverse sensory needs

Designcurial – June 2018

In this age of visual over-stimulation it is hardly surprising that an architecture of wacky silhouettes, complex facade formations and parametric acrobatics dominates our skylines. Yet focusing on the visual alone is clearly not conducive to any sort of architectural discourse. This is particularly important for individuals with sensory difficulties or impairments. For people who are blind, deaf, deafblind or autistic, the sensory effects of architecture can have a dramatic impact on one’s ability to independently and safely conduct everyday activities.

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ArchitectureNow: Autism-Aware Design

Architecture Now – July 2017

Fluorescent lights. A wall painted bright yellow. A smoke detector that keeps beeping through a meeting. These are things that you might encounter in an office or a classroom without much notice. But what if you saw those fluorescent lights flickering intensely and heard them emitting a painfully sharp buzz? Or if that yellow wall seemed to be vibrating, like a broken computer monitor? Or if the bleep of the alarm was the loudest sound you could hear?

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Design empathy’ builds inclusive spaces for people with autism

Theglobeandmail – April 2015

In this age of visual over-stimulation it is hardly surprising that an architecture of wacky silhouettes, complex facade formations and parametric acrobatics dominates our skylines. Yet focusing on the visual alone is clearly not conducive to any sort of architectural discourse. This is particularly important for individuals with sensory difficulties or impairments. For people who are blind, deaf, deafblind or autistic, the sensory effects of architecture can have a dramatic impact on one’s ability to independently and safely conduct everyday activities.

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Design for Living, The National Autistic Society, Your Autism Magazine

Summer – 2015

DR MAGDA MOSTAFA is a world-leading expert on designing built environments for autism. A special needs design associate at Progressive Architects, she developed the fi rst ever design framework on the subject. We last interviewed her ten years ago, so wanted to ask her how things have moved on since then.

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An Interview with Magda Mostafa: Pioneer in Autism Design

Archdaily – October 2013

In 2002, Magda Mostafa, a then-PhD student at Cairo University, was given an exciting project: to design Egypt’s first educational centre for autism. The young architect set herself down to the task of researching into autism design, certain she’d soon find guidelines and accessibility codes to direct her through the process (after all, about one in every 88 children is estimated to fall into the autism spectrum).

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Architecture for All

thecairoreview – Fall 2014

Despite some progress in the last few decades, researchers remain far from determining the causes of autism, a complex neural disorder that impairs social interaction and communication. Magda Mostafa, an architecture professor at the American University in Cairo, is a pioneer in a related field—applied research on the intersection between environmental stimuli and design that provides practical solutions to the challenges of living with autism.
Mostafa, 41, is an internationally recognized figure in autism design, which recognizes the sensory needs of people with autism in the same way architecture accommodates the mobility needs of wheelchair users. “The idea is building the environment in a way that is cognizant of the sensory input that comes from it,” Mostafa explains. “It’s not just what we see, but what we hear, touch, and smell.”

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Designing Buildings for Children With Autism

tbloomberg – April 2014

Can we design a building that makes life easier for people with autism? A place where autistic children can learn more easily and develop with less stress?
According to architect Magda Mostafa, the answer is yes. And creating these kinds of places, she says, can reveal important lessons about how people are impacted by architecture. Based in Cairo, Mostafa was approached to help design a school for children with autism and other special needs. Her involvement with that project, the Advance Special Needs Education Center, led her to develop the Autism ASPECTSS Design Index, a unique tool that assesses architectural environments for people with autism.

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Architect Has Found The Key To Designing For Autistic Children

businessinsider – October 2013

Since those uncertain beginnings, Mostafa has positioned herself as one of the world’s pre-eminent researchers in autism design. Her latest work, summarized in “An Architecture for Autism,” the journal IJAR’s most downloaded article in 2012, outlines Mostafa’s latest accomplishment: the Autism ASPECTSS™ Design Index, both a matrix to help guide design as well as an assessment tool “to score the autism-appropriateness of a built environment” post-occupancy. In the following interview, we discuss the Index, the potential of evidence-based design for architecture, and what it’s like to break ground (and try get funding) in a country where ”black-outs, security threats, water shortages and unbelievable traffic” are everyday occurrences.

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