Arch power: Fobe Home / Guilhem Eustache

Architects: Guilhem Eustache
Location: Marrakech, Marocco
Project Year: 2007
Project Area: (Private residence) 171.96 sqm, (Guard house) 20.20 sqm, (Garage) 35.08 sqm, (Pool house) 13.12 sqm
Photographs: Jean-Marie Monthiers

A client introduced me to a film producer in Belgium. He offered me to draw up the plans of several houses on land he had bought in Marrakech, Morocco. For many years I regularly visited Morocco. From the first trip I was bewitched by that country and the three projects studied to date are certainly fed, to varying degrees, by all the images and impressions gathered during my stays.

The main difficulty was to define the program with the client. Originally we had planned to build three houses on this site. The project gradually decreased to finally the smallest of these three houses in order to preserve the field. The client informed me he bought a second larger plot (5 hectares) under the same conditions but closer to the Atlas in order to implement the other two houses.

For this first project my desire was to establish a close dialogue with the land, vegetation and the atlas to the horizon. Being a small house of 170 sqm on a plot of 2.5 hectares, we had to create a dynamic equilibrium despite this difference of scale. We played with light and shadow to enhance and strengthen the volumes.

Ground Floor Plan

We used local materials and techniques like clay, tadelack, Pierre de Ourika. We have preserved the wildness of the land although we have planted more than 500 trees. We doubled the walls to help deal with the climate, creating room high-rise and sun protections. Each region and country deserves architectural answers, adapted in line with requirements climatic, cultural and economic conditions.