Dialogue with the Nile is run by MASAR Competitions, the competitions platform that grew out of MASAR 101.
Round 2 was more than a brief. From April, participants could work with mentors and join general sessions with guests from architecture, interior design, visualisation, construction and academia.
One brief. Many directions.
One question about a floating market on the Nile came back as 65 entries. The jury selected 24 Finalists, and every one of them is on the Round 2 page with the team behind it.
The mentors
- Samar Helmy — Design Director at MASAR Architects and co-founder of Twenties; an architect and designer who develops design concepts and leads architectural projects.
- Sameh Ibrahim Emam — Design Competition Consultant at MASAR Architects, focused on architectural competitions, design thinking and competitive design approaches.
- Soha Abdelghany — team leader, architect and interior designer.
- Mohamed Helmy — co-founder of Shado and construction manager.
- Ahmed El-Metwaly — architect and entrepreneur, founder of MASAR 101 and MASAR Competitions.
One of the general sessions
On 30 July 2026, Samer El Sayary — Assistant Professor of Architecture, researcher and architect with 55 international and national awards over 26 years of practice — led “Architectural Competitions”: what makes one entry stand out while another gets overlooked? Through real case studies he told the stories behind successful entries and went through 21 common reasons projects don’t win, a month before the final submission.
