&Wassef’s Coastal Installations Reflect on Sand, Sea & Nature

This summer, the family-run multidisciplinary studio &Wassef completed 'Arenas in Motion', a kinetic art installation that captures the movement of wind through forms that draw from marine life.

Founder Ahmed Wassef trained as an engineer in Egypt before pursuing postgraduate design studies at Accademia dell'Arte in Florence, an experience that fundamentally reshaped his outlook. "I think it changed a lot about who I am today. It made me not a very technical engineer at all. It made me look at life from a different perspective."

Open to visitors at Silver Sands by ORA on Egypt's North Coast, 'Arenas in Motion' comprises five brushed stainless-steel forms. "We wanted to reflect the environment, the sand, and nature" Wassef explains. "Fish have these beautiful silver scales, and we wanted to create something abstracted from that."

Each structure bears the name of one of the five winds that sweep across the sea from different directions: the Meltemi, Khamsin, Sirocco, Levante and Tramontane. "We created five distinct forms and built two engines to turn the plates. That movement is what makes the wind itself visible,” Wassef says. The installation is intended to create a shared experience across generations."I imagine a young kid who is four or six years old pointing to this and telling their parents how it moves and how it adds a layer to the beach.”

Their second installation, still in its conceptual phase, transforms the familiar beach watchtower into a playful, inhabitable structure that reimagines the simple act of sea-watching as part of the summer experience. Drawing from coastal life, the concept features three distinct forms, a fish, a bird and a jellyfish, each envisioned as a guardian of the shore.

"The simple act of watching the sea waves became something unique," Wassef says. "You climb this watchtower and look at the beach through a little hole shaped like a bird's eye or the mouth of a fish. If something like that had happened to me in my childhood, or even now, I would always be connected to this destination because of that experience."

For Wassef, the concept succeeds precisely because it remains uncomplicated. "The beauty is in its simplicity," he says.