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Waleed Arafa is the founder & principal of Dar Arafa Architecture, established in Cairo, 2006, where he proudly leads a team of young Egyptian architects. Arafa earned a B.Sc. in Architecture, Ain Shams University, Cairo, 2001, a post-graduate degree in the Conservation of Historical Buildings, from the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London, UK, 2015. His thesis was titled: “The Mosque in Britain: British Heritage”. Waleed is currently an MA Researcher, History of Islamic Art & Architecture, at the American University in Cairo. His work attained global recognition having been awarded, shortlisted and nominated for many international awards such as the Abdullatif Al Fozan Award for Mosque Architecture, the Aga Khan Award for Architecture -3 times- and the World Architecture Festival.
Arafa believes that Islam may provide new perspectives on architecture and help the world overcome its current creative, intellectual, and spiritual impasse. His approach is based on finding ways to continue the discontinued architectural past of countries with an established legacy in the architecture of Islam, such as and especially Egypt. Equally, looking into how to bring forth new architecture(s) of Islam in completely new contexts, which have their own time-honored architectural traditions, nonetheless have no precedent in producing architecture of Islam, such as that of Britain and/or the Occident at large.