SHARE Egypt 2026, the International Forum for Architecture and Urbanism organized by SHARE Architects, takes place on 13–14 December 2026 inside the Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza — the network’s first forum in Egypt and its first edition on the African continent. Part of the international SHARE network spanning 25 countries, SHARE Egypt 2026 is being positioned as a strategic entry into one of the world’s fastest-changing urban regions.
SHARE Architects has spent almost 30 years building bridges between architecture, business and public policy across Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia. Choosing Cairo for SHARE Egypt 2026 was never a matter of simply adding a new country to the map. It is, organizers say, a strategic decision — built on timing, geography and the sheer scale of what is being built across Egypt right now.
Why SHARE Architects Chose Cairo
Cairo is the largest city in the Arab world and one of the most influential urban centers on the African continent, sitting at the crossroads of the Middle East, North Africa and the wider Mediterranean world. For a forum whose mission is to connect architects, developers and policymakers across borders, few cities offer a more natural meeting point between three regions at once.
The venue reinforces the point. The Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza — widely described as the largest archaeological museum in the world dedicated to a single civilization — sits at the edge of the Giza plateau, within sight of the pyramids. Hosting SHARE Egypt 2026 inside a building that itself represents one of the most ambitious cultural infrastructure projects of the past two decades makes the argument physical: Egypt is not only a custodian of architectural history, but also actively building its next chapter.
That next chapter is already visible on the ground, built along three parallel tracks. State-led urban programs — the New Administrative Capital, New Alamein and a wider network of 24 new cities — are redrawing the map of Egyptian urbanism. Egypt has also attracted foreign direct investment on a historic scale, anchored by the Ras El Hekma agreement with the United Arab Emirates and the expansion of the Suez Canal Economic Zone. A third track — strategic energy and transport infrastructure, including the El Dabaa nuclear plant and a planned high-speed rail network — is generating sustained demand for construction materials, skilled labor, and engineering and architecture services alike.
Cairo’s residential and office markets remain robust even as pressure on purchasing power begins to temper the pace of sales, while international financing from institutions such as the World Bank, the AIIB, the IMF and the EU provides a layer of macroeconomic stability that supports execution of these projects over the medium and long term.
Cairo in 2026 is less a debut for SHARE than a natural fit. Few markets in the world are building at this scale, with this much capital flowing directly into architecture, infrastructure and urban policy at once — and that is precisely the intersection SHARE’s mission was built around: the conviction that capital, design and nation-building move together, not separately.
What SHARE Egypt 2026 offers Cairo, in turn, is direct access to that mission in practice— a network already active in 25 countries, built on putting international architecture practices in the same room as local architects, developers and policymakers. And in a marketplace where architecture, investment and government policy are already converging in real time, that kind of direct dialogue is exactly what a moment of this scale needs. Cairo is also the forum’s first anchor on the African continent— a starting point for taking that mission into Africa and the MENA region.
“Egypt is building at a scale few countries on the continent can match right now,” says Florin Mindirigiu , co-founder of SHARE Architects. “Capital, design and nation-building are converging here in real time — and that’s exactly the conversation SHARE exists to host. Bringing SHARE into Egypt isn’t just about adding a new country to the network. It’s about giving the people building Cairo’s next chapter direct access to ideas, standards and lessons already tested across 25 countries — so that growth this fast doesn’t come at the cost of getting it right.”
SHARE Egypt 2026 Organizing Committee
Turning that strategy into a working forum has fallen to an organizing committee drawing on Egypt’s architecture and civic leadership. Prof. Iman Gawad, Ambassador of SHARE Architects in Egypt and Vice President of the African Union of Architects, anchors the forum’s ties to local academic and professional networks. Dr. Amr Attia, chief executive of PUD Consultants, and Karim El Hayawan , co-founder of DesignPoint , bring practice-side leadership to the committee, alongside Dr. Tamer Elgabaly founder and CEO of Elgabaly Architects. It is, in short, a committee built to make the case that SHARE Egypt 2026 is not an import — it is being shaped, from the ground up, by the people who understand both what Cairo has built and what it still needs to build.
SHARE Egypt 2026 Themes: What the First Edition Will Address
The programme for SHARE Egypt 2026’s first edition is built around two parallel main stages and a dedicated innovation stage, framed by an opening debate that sets the tone for both days. Main Stage 1 is dedicated to public architecture, running panels on public buildings architecture, façade design, public developments, sustainable building envelopes and architectural identity — examining how public buildings and their envelopes carry identity at a moment when Egypt is building public infrastructure at scale. Main Stage 2, which also serves as the forum’s networking area, turns to living and working architecture, covering houses and villas, residential developments, and mixed-use living/working spaces — the blended live-work formats increasingly shaping how new Egyptian communities are planned. A third, dedicated track — the Design the Future Stage — is built around the age of AI and sustainability, with sessions on AI and immersive architecture, treating both as practical pressures now shaping how buildings get designed, approved and built across the region. Framing both days is the opening Master Debate, titled “Capital, Design and Nation-Building — Investing in MENA’s Urban Future “ — the theme organizers position as the intellectual spine of the forum, tying the panel-level design conversations to the larger question of how investment decisions and architectural ambition shape each other across the MENA region. Together, these four threads — public architecture, housing and mixed-use living, AI and sustainability, and capital and nation-building — make up the full thematic map of SHARE Egypt 2026’s first edition.
SHARE Egypt 2026 at a Glance Event:
SHARE Egypt 2026 — International Forum for Architecture and Urbanism Organizer: SHARE Architects, part of an international network active in 25 countries Dates: 13–14 December 2026
Venue: Grand Egyptian Museum, Giza, Cairo,
Egypt Significance: SHARE Architects’ first forum in Egypt and first edition on the African continent Industry backdrop: Egypt’s construction market valued at $51.74B in 2026, projected to reach $70.27B by 2031 (Mordor Intelligence) Core themes: public architecture and façade design · housing and mixed-use living · capital, design and nation-building · sustainability and AI in design
Event website: https://share-architects.com/events-2026/share-egypt-forum/
