Cairo, Egypt is one of the densest cities in the world, home to 7.7 million people living along a narrow urban stretch of the Nile River.  The historic center is a living city over 1000 years old, used today in much the same way as when the first walls were erected in 969 CE.  Over the last century modern Cairo has undergone a number of dramatic social changes with the fall of the Ottoman Empire at the end of WWI to shirking off the last vestiges of British Colonial rule, followed by a period of intermittent volatile infighting which finally led to the 1952 revolution.  For the first time in almost 3000 years Egypt was ruled by its own people through Gamal Abdel Nasser, a strong dictator with socialist affiliations. After multiple wars with neighboring Israel, the assassination of a visionary leader, Anwar Sadat, in 1981 by Islamic fundamentalists and the fall of the former Soviet Union (a major supporter of Egypt and a Cold War battle field), the political climate today is calmed to relative stability.  In this time of relative calm we are proposing a new laboratory for the examination and exploration of social sciences. 

 The Social Laboratory will be located in heart of "Islamic Cairo" on the edge of the Khan el Khalili suq (Arabic for market).  The Khan el Khalili, one of the largest markets in the Middle East, has been the center of commerce in Cairo for 600 years, and arguably the center of culture and social interaction, including patterns of social relationships.  The proposed social laboratory on the edge of the suq will be poised to take full advantage of the examination of social relationships and apply them towards development of its new facility.   Social sciences differ from the arts and humanities in that they tend to emphasize the use of the scientific method in the study of humanity, including quantitative and qualitative methods.  The architecture of the proposed center should in every way act as a laboratory to study humanity through all possible methods of inquiry.