Swiss Embassy, Cairo

The Swiss embassy was built in 1881. The building doesn’t have any foundations; it is carried by 70cm thick limestone walls. The building of the high dam in Aswan raised the water table in all over Egypt. Since then the basement stood constantly 30cm under water. The flooded basement and the earthquake in 1992 endangered the building severely. AL HABASHI General Contracting revitalized the historic building by waterproofing it and by reinforcing the load-bearing structures. The carrying limestone walls were stabilized using stainless steel building staples. Also chemical injections were used to prevent from rising capillary water. To keep the groundwater away AL HABASHI General Contracting also built a water proof concrete piling wall which surrounds the whole building. The piling wall is 6 m deep and 60 cm thick and in a distance of 3 m from the building. These works abled to restore and modernize the historic villa.