Ahmed El Antably
British Academy Global Professor

Profile

Biography

Ahmed El Antably positions his research interests at the intersection of history, theory, and digital technology, where he examines these topics from a multidisciplinary perspective, continually crossing the boundaries between architecture, archaeology, anthropology, philosophy, and computer science. He is particularly interested in the perception of design media, virtuality, and gaming. Recently, he has been exploring the theoretical and practical potentials of emerging digital technologies, such as artificial intelligence and the metaverse, on the representation and perception of the built environment.

Career

El Antably served as a Professor of Design Computation and Digital Heritage at the Arab Academy for Science, Technology, and Maritime Transport (AASTMT) in Egypt before joining the University of York. He also held the position of Dean of Education at the South Valley campus of the same institution for the past five years. Prior to his time at AASTMT, he completed his doctoral degree at the University of California, Berkeley, USA, in Design Theories and Methods, with a Designated Emphasis in New Media.

Research

Overview

Ahmed El Antably is currently working on the Nubian Chronicles research project, which is funded by the British Academy Global Professorship Award (GP21/100218). The project proposes an innovative approach to reconstruct and preserve the lost cultural landscape of Lower Nubia, which the Aswan High Dam submerged in the 1960s. It utilises cutting-edge virtual heritage technologies to create an immersive and interactive digital reconstruction of Nubian villages and their surrounding environment. It critically employs Gen-AI to develop AI agents representing key Nubian characters, enabling users to engage in conversations that uncover suppressed narratives and collective memories, providing unique insights into Nubian daily life, architectural practices, and cultural traditions. Theoretically, the project builds on Pierre Nora's ‘Les lieux de mémoire’. Methodologically, it focuses on oral histories and integrates historical research and archival materials with advanced computational methods to address critical gaps in the current understanding of Nubian heritage. 

Research Interests

• Design Media and Technical Mediation
• Design Computation
• Digital Heritage
• Virtualit
• Multi-modal Representation of Space

Selected Research Projects

• 2025-2029: Nubian Chronicles (Principal Investigator), funded by the British Academy Global Professorship Award (GP24\100218).
• 2010-2012: Virtual Sirkap (Co-investigator), funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, Digital Humanities Start-up Grant, which included the Department of Architecture, University of California, Berkeley, and the Department of Religious Studies, Claremont McKenna College.
• 2008-2009: Virtual Sambor Prei Kuk (Researcher), funded by the Pacific Rim Research Program.
• 2005-2008: Remembering 7th Street (Researcher), funded by the University of California College Prep (UCCP) Innovation Grant program.

Publications

Selected publications

Book Chapter

• El-Dardiry, A., ElKhateeb, A., & El Antably, A. (2025). Sounds from the roots: The digital reconstruction of sabil wa kuttab Ismail Al-Maghlawi. In P. Jordan, S. Mura, & S. Hamilton (Eds.), New Sensory Approaches to the Past: Applied Methods in Sensory Heritage and Archaeology (pp. 237-254). UCL Press.
• Sardina, R. A. S., Elfiki, S., & El Antably, A. (2022). Everyday living in Cairo’s City of the Dead. In J. Heathcott (Ed.), The Routledge handbook of infrastructure design: Global perspectives from architectural history (pp. 85-94). Routledge.

Book

• El Antably, A. (2013). Experiencing the past: The virtual (re)construction of places. Saarbrücken, Germany: Scholar’s Press.

Journals

• El-Husseiny, S., Mansour, Y., Elrefaie, M., & El Antably, A. (2025). Researching children’s physical environment: A systematic review of research methods. Archnet-IJAR: International Journal of Architectural Research.
• El-Dardiry, A., ElKhateeb, A., & El Antably, A. (2024). Water plays: The architectural and acoustic reconstruction of sabil wa kuttab of Ismail Al-Maghlawi. Studies in Digital Heritage, 8(1), 1-21.
• Yassin, M., Mansour, Y., & El Antably, A. (2024). The pecking order: A Bourdieusian look at authority in virtual peer crits. International Journal of Technology and Design Education.
• Hamed, W., & El Antably, A. (2023). Knowledge-based HBIM for conservation: The case of Yahya Al-Shabih mausoleum. Digital Applications in Archaeology and Cultural Heritage, 30, e00278.
• Fouad, A. A., & El Antably, A. (2022). Agent-based modeling and simulation of pandemic propagation in a school environment. International Journal of Architectural Computing, 21(1), 120-135.
• El-Ghazouly, Y., & El Antably, A. (2021). Using digital human models to evaluate the ergonomic comfort of interior layouts and furniture design. Technology|Architecture + Design, 5(2), 225-240. 
• Yassin, M., El Antably, A., & Abou El-Ela, M. A. S. (2021). The others know the way: A study of the impact of co-presence on wayfinding decisions in an interior virtual environment. Automation in Construction, 128, 103782.
• Hamid, M., Tolba, O., & El Antably, A. (2018). BIM semantics for digital fabrication: A knowledge-based approach. Automation in Construction, 91, 62-82.
• Hong, S. W., El Antably, A., & Kalay, Y. E. (2017). Architectural design creativity in multi-user virtual environment: A comparative analysis between remote collaboration media. Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science, 46(5), 826-844.
• Michon, D., & El Antably, A. (2013). It’s hard to be down when you’re up: Interpreting cultural heritage through alternative media. International Journal of Heritage Studies, 19(1), 16-40. 

Conferences

• El Mesawy, M., & El Antably, A. (2024). From topology to spatial information: A computational approach for generating residential floorplans. The 29th Annual Conference for Computer-Aided Architectural Design Research in Asia (CAADRIA 2024): Accelerated Design, Singapore.
• Zoheir, I., El Antably, A., & Madani, A. S. (2020). An AI Lens on Historic Cairo: A Deep Learning Application for Minarets Classification. The Association for Computer Aided Design in Architecture Annual Conference (ACADIA 2020): Distributed Proximities, USA. 
• Alaa, R., Elfiki, S., & El Antably, A. (2018). Space and everyday life in Cairo’s City of the Dead. IASTE 2018: The Thirtieth Anniversary Conference of the International Association for the Study of Traditional Environments: The Politics of Tradition, University of Coimbra, Portugal.
• ElSayed, M., Tolba, O., & El Antably, A. (2016). Architectural space planning using parametric modeling: Egyptian National Housing project. The Arab Society for Computer Aided Architectural Design (ASCAAD), SOAS University of London.
• Michon, D., & El Antably, A. (2012). Alternative authorities: New media, an ancient city, and the art of interpretation. High-Tech Heritage: How Are Digital Technologies Changing Our Views of the Past?, The UMass Amherst Center for Heritage and Society.
• El Antably, A. (2010). The virtual (re)construction of history: Some epistemological questions. Spaces of History / Histories of Space: Emerging Approaches to the Study of the Built Environment, The University of California, Berkeley.