The country’s first specialized burial-sector developer announced its intention last week to redefine “the concept of cemeteries in Egypt through a well-organized, dignified, and contemporary framework.” Serenity for Investment and Real Estate Management’s EGP 5 bn plan to build a 58-feddan memorial garden caught our interest, so we decided to sit down with Serenity’s co-founder Laithy Mekawy to find out more about the project and how they’re designing it to make sure it lives up to its name.

The name Serenity was born out of the contrast between the chaos of local cemeteries and the “peaceful, clean, and organized” shariah burial experiences the partners encountered abroad. “We sat and we spoke and we realized how [abroad] things are organized […] and here’s where the name came from,” Mekawy tells us. The goal was to replicate that “inner serenity” in an Egyptian context, where the experience can often be daunting and chaotic for those wishing to visit their loved ones.

While typical cemeteries reach up to 70% density, Serenity’s is capped at 40%, a move intended to replace claustrophobic walls with openness. “The density is much less than everywhere else […] which gives us much more space for green areas, wider roads,” Mekawy explains.

Away from brick-and-mortar plans, landscaping is set to play an important role in helping the site — which Mekawy very deliberately described as a memorial garden — live up to its name. “We want people to be able to park their cars and enjoy the quietness of the lush landscape — the bougainvilleas, the palms, and the natural shading,” he said.

To prevent the 58-feddan site from feeling like a monolithic development, Mekawy said they avoided a traditional repetitive grid in favor of distinct “clusters.” By breaking the land into smaller groups of buildings separated by greenery and focal points, the layout creates a sense of openness. “We didn’t make it all continuous in one line. We made it clusters […] so people have more openness when they’re walking around. They look left and right. It’s more open, not walking in between walls,” he says, ensuring the scale remains human and intimate.

And to maintain this peace even during growth, the site is phased by 15-meter-wide roads. “Each cluster is a phase […] people won’t feel the construction in other zones. It will be completely separated,” he explained.

To tackle the heat of the open desert, the architecture itself acts as a climate control system. Inside each unit, there are openings in the ceilings and through the walls to create ventilation wind traps, along with local natural marble to reflect heat and steel meshes with Islamic geometric designs to provide shade. “When people sit there, they have beautiful natural light coming from everywhere, yet they also have a place where it’s shaded from the sun.”

With a phase-one launch slated for this quarter, the firm is already mulling scaling the model across Egypt and into the wider Middle East. “This is a complete transition point for something better,” Mekawy said, noting that the firm is also exploring dedicated developments for the Christian community. “Hopefully this will be a turning point for a lot of people to [remodel this sector] to adapt to one’s needs today.”

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