Balancing global styles with Moroccan standards, a geometric concrete home catches the eye without sticking out. In a family photo, everyone might share the same eyes or nose or smile, but you can immediately spot the one with an extra spark, the spirit of adventure. So too the Casablanca, Morocco, house of architect Mehdi Berrada. Though similar in size and shape to … [Read more...]
Lush greenery reflects Rabat’s agricultural past at new sports club
Located in the heart of the Souissi district in Rabat, Morocco, Groupe3 Architectes’ Wifaq Sports Club benefits from a rich landscape heritage, which reflects the agricultural past of the city’s suburbs, whose traces are still present in the area. Tall trees and dense windbreak hedges enclose the site and protect it from its immediate environment, while fruit trees and … [Read more...]
Masterplan proposal for Moroccan beachfront blurs the boundaries between city and sea
UK and Iraq-based AMBS Architects and local partner Archgues Guessous Associates have submitted a new masterplan for Rabat’s beach in Morocco, which blurs the boundaries between the city and the sea. Aiming at becoming a true urban intervention, the project extends its role as a literal ‘support platform’ for the public, with a design meant to create and shape social … [Read more...]
Architectural marriage of international and local dialects for Moroccan hotel
Nick Gowing's L’Amandier Hotel emerges from the rich, red earth of the L’Amandier Plateau. So, whilst remaining true to the natural colour palette, he juxtaposed the buildings’ bold and striking geometric lines with the contours of the surrounding hills and mountains. Set in the mesmerizing Ouirgane Valley, about an hour’s drive from Marrakech, is an inspiring modernist take … [Read more...]
Moroccan school features garden courtyard and perforated screen facade
The Wall of Knowledge Middle School is located in the city of El Jadida (100 km south of Casablanca). Designed by Tarik Zoubdi Architects, the irregular shape of the site and its orientation to the sun suggested a spatial distribution of the project in three main areas. The central area is a building reserved for teaching. It occupies the middle of the plot. This strategic … [Read more...]
Luxury compound in Benin
The LAP Marina residences, by Peia Associates in Cotonou, Benin is designed to not only provide a luxury compound of modern villas (with all the full residential services), but to reinterpret the African identity and reinvent the local and continental aesthetic in a more elegant and contemporary style. The project, designed by the collaborative efforts of Italian architecture … [Read more...]
An opportunity to rethink campus typology in Africa
The proposal for the Foum El Oued Technopole in Morocco by Urban Agency, Oualalou+Choi and Alto Ingenierie can be seen not only as an opportunity to design a new campus of innovative architecture, technological innovation and merit but equally an opportunity to rethink the campus typology and carefully examine the ways it should perform for the sake of its multiple users and in … [Read more...]
Geometric volumes of Moroccan villa reference local building traditions
Composed of cubic modules, a minimalist Moroccan villa encourages relaxation while referencing local building traditions. Designed by the creative French duo behind Studio KO, this serene five-bedroom retreat is located in the small town of Tagadert. Featuring elegant minimalist interiors, a 98-foot-long infinity pool, and breathtaking views of the snow-capped Atlas … [Read more...]
Restrained material palette emphasises elegant massing of volumes at Moroccan residential complex
The core of defining an urban project often lies in the creation of the block - the redefinition of the thresholds between the public, the communal, the private, and the intimate. In this winning competition entry for a master plan on the site of the city’s former zoo, a series of residential ‘superblocks’ break from the scale and hermeticism of the traditional urban block. The … [Read more...]
Moroccan airport wrapped in skin of multihued perforated panels
Groupe3Architectes has completed an airport for the city of Guelmim, in Morocco, featuring a light-filtering façade made up of panels of multicoloured metal-mesh. The airport designed by the Rabat-based architecture office, is located on the site of an existing military base around three kilometres north of Guelmim, in southwest Morocco. The city is often referred to as … [Read more...]