OMER SIDDIG ARCHITECTURAL CONSULTANT – OSAC

My father’s practice, OSAC, in Khartoum is where I worked over university holidays and after my graduation in 1988 and were I picked up my experience on design, construction and architecture in general.

My father has kindly shared with me scans from his office, the culmination of many years of work. It has been an absolute labour of love to go through the images and make a selection to upload here. Some of the buildings I remember, some I don’t. Many of the drawings are by people that worked for long or short periods of time for my father. Some are by myself, some are signed and some are not. I will be uploading the full archive online soon.

It has been a walk down memory lane, a time in my late teens and early twenties, when i absolutely absorbed whatever I saw and whatever I heard at the office; it is a nostalgia for rotring pens and the smell of ammonia as the blueprints were being made.

osac59     osac58   osac51

The above examples show the distinctive style of drawing that I was trained in. The work of OSAC most certainly had a clear identity and approach rooted in rationalism and efficiency. For many years the company built prolifically in Khartoum and beyond. The range of building types was also very wide.

osac57  osac56  osac55

The below images are selected from a much wider repository – and cover many years of work, and many young architects’ work, as they transitioned through OSAC. I will be requesting from my father that he writes up a brief history of his experiences in practice. His memory is much better than mine and it will be a wonderful opportunity for younger Sudanese architects to honour the wealth of experience that we have, the heritage of design and building that we can link with and take the profession forward.

I will be working further on this archive to categorise it into SINGLE FAMILY DWELLINGS; MULTI FAMILY DWELLINGS; NON RESIDENTIAL ARCHITECTURE; FACADES; INTERNAL PLANNING; DETAILING; SERVICING; DRAWING STYLES; CLIMATIC RESPONSE; CULTURAL RESPONSE;

Till then, enjoy the image documentation.

osac25   osac26 osac6   osac27  osac34      osac35

osac28   osac45           osac22    osac1

osac24   osac23     osac30   osac33  osac40    osac42osac29   osac43osac42     osac44

osac2    osac4

osac3   osac5

osac7   osac8

osac9  osac10 osac36     osac39

osac11  osac12

osac15  osac13    osac18   osac14     osac16        osac49       osac60     osac31osac17  osac54  osac48   osac53  osac50     osac21  osac19   osac47

osac46   osac41