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Architects: Driss Kettani, Mohamed Amine Siana, Saad El Kabbaj, Yachar Bouhaya Architecte
- Area: 30888 m²
- Year: 2021
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Photographs:Fernando Guerra
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Lead Architects: Yachar Bouhaya, Saad El Kabbaj, Driss Kettani, Mohamed Amine Siana
Text description provided by the architects. This project is located in the Metropolitan Axis district which hosts the new financial center of Casablanca. The BO52 project contributes to the diversity of this prestigious urban area by introducing a main residential component and a smaller office component. The project is located near the CFC tower, one of the main architectural landmarks of Casa Anfa.
The project is intended above all to belong to Casablanca, taking inspiration from the essence and codes of architecture that has made Casablanca specific throughout the twentieth century. But it is also a question of fully asserting its contemporaneity by trying to offer writing of its time, light, white, strong and subtle at the same time.
The project, therefore, consists of the main building with a strong verticality with 16 storeys overlooking the Main Street and another building with 13 storeys overlooking an interior garden, apart from the pedestrian mall and the Palmeraie. The articulation of these 2 entities is done through an office component. This configuration allows a functional logic and to better manage the potential views.
The architectural expression plays on the whiteness, the horizontality of the continuous terraces which constitute spaces of exterior amenities, open and protected at the same time, greatly appreciated by the inhabitants of Casablanca. These running balconies give expression to the project by underlining it with layers multiplying the levels of reading, transparency and blurring the mass of the volumes. An architecture that expands by cutting a semi-transparent veil on the horizon. The apartments are open on these terraces and allow to benefit from a quality of use by taking advantage of the temperate climate outside and by benefiting from the various views offered by the site.
These terraces are not projected onto the void but benefit from vertical screens, relatively concentrated at the level of the bedrooms and widely spaced at the level of the reception areas. These « claustras » make it possible to occasionally offer areas protected from sunshine, looks, and the wind while leaving a semi-transparency. They also make it possible to draw a protective “line” which outlines the periphery line of the various apartments and reinforces the feeling of inferiority. This skin, white in color, will play with the effects of natural light to adapt to the ambient light, thus creating a vibrant facade depending on the time of day. The interplay of the balcony railings, in glass or white vertical carpentry, creates a specific pattern, a sort of modern "calligraphy" which gives the project its graphic expression.
