Mahmoud Riad, head of Riad Architecture: Each week, My Morning Routine looks at how a successful member of the community starts their day — and then throws in a couple of random business questions just for fun. Speaking to us this week is Mahmoud Riad (LinkedIn), who leads Riad Architecture.

My name is Mahmoud Riad and I am an architect and the head of Riad Architecture, a three generation, 90-year old firm based in Cairo that is responsible for some of the city’s most iconic modernist buildings, including the Arab League and the Nile Hilton. The firm was founded by my grandfather, Mahmoud Riad, and my brother and I are the third generation of architects after my father and uncle to run the business.

At work I’m CEO, business developer, and designer: My responsibility is to make sure that my team is all in place and effectively handling the tasks that are being delegated to them. I also run client communication and business development. At the same time I like to actually do the design myself with some projects. Usually, these are projects that I feel are significant to the office, like the Arab League building.

Our projects: Currently, we’re working on an extension project for the Arab League, a business park in Sodic West, and building several villas in Dallas, Texas. I have a dream that I want to buy all of Riad Architecture’s Cairo buildings and restore them to their former glory because I’ve been seeing a lot of them demolished or repurposed in a way that defeats the initial idea.

Nearly a century of creation: My grandfather created a legacy of very grand buildings with spatial layouts that were neoclassical in style and had modern facades, while the second generation designed residential homes and offices in the brutalist style of the 1980s and Greco-Roman-, Mediterranean-style resorts on Egypt’s coasts.

I’m trying to lead a different type of philosophy in architecture through my business: My ethos is one based on critical regionalism and phenomenology. We want to design for the spirit of a place, looking at it through a critical eye to try to understand the use of traditional architectural techniques or philosophies, asking why they are incorporated and how they have evolved. We try to push these in a different direction that could cater to today’s zeitgeist and the spirit of the time. We also consider how an individual’s sensory experience alters their perception of space.

That’s what we’re trying to do as the third generation: I can’t really say that we’re there yet, as a lot of our projects don’t really fall under that umbrella, but we’re trying slowly but surely to venture into this. If we have ten regular projects, we hope to have one that we feel can fall under that philosophical umbrella.

We’re seeing a growing trend in revitalizing Cairo’s forgotten buildings: I believe that Cairo’s architectural future is in adaptive reuse, like with all the work that’s happening in Downtown and other metropolitan areas that have been forgotten or left behind. Cairo has a lot of leftover, unoccupied space, much of which is quite substantial and rich architecturally. Instead of tearing them down, repurposing them is a great alternative, but the firms face challenges in convincing investors, who see new builds as more profitable.

I wake up at 5am every morning to be at the gym between 6-8am, so that I can be at the office by 8:30am, reading Enterprise on the drive in. My day starts with checking in with the design team, after which I head to meetings, visit our sites or clients, and return to the office by 4pm where I stay until 7pm. Throughout the day, I take short breaks here and there, but the one constant in my day is work.

Routines make my day easier for me: I structure my time to fit in small breaks to motivate me when I need it, or meditate and listen to different mantras. It gives me a bit of a boost to make sure that I stay on track.

When I’m not working, I really enjoy spending time in the sun or at the pool. We’re currently in the middle of a work marathon, but before that I used to meet up with friends every weekend to venture off to different parts of Cairo and explore places we haven’t seen before — most recently the Nilometer in Manial. My favorite space in Cairo would be a thin triangle in Sharia Al Mu’izz, encompassing the Sabil and Kuttab of Ismail Pasha. The street appears to be one continuous wall until you start walking towards it and the street turns into a fork. It’s a spot that I really like spatially.

The only movie that I’ve seen that I really liked over the last year was Oppenheimer. I’m a big fan of Christopher Nolan and the way he creates this male protagonist type struggling with inner turmoil and decisions they need to live with. I was also really drawn to Ted Lasso as a character, to me he is quite inspirational.

There are two pieces of advice that I stick to: When I was applying to study music, a friend of my father’s told me, “always go for gold, never settle for silver.” The second is from J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, which says, “The mark of an immature man is someone who wants to die for his cause. The mark of a mature man is one who wants to live humbly for it.”

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