Marrakech House, Tassoultante Residence, Property in Morocco, Moroccan Home
Fobe House, Tassoultante, Marrakech
House in Tassoultante, Morocco design by Guilhem Eustache studio architects
18 Jan 2012
Fobe House
Tassoultante, Marrakech, Morocco
Design: Guilhem Eustache studio
Photographs: Jean Marie Monthiers
Jean Marie Monthiers (one of the most important architectural photographers from France) died during the night between 16th and 17th of January 2012.
Marrakech House
Improving the quality of life has long been my professional creed, where the core value is space rather than the object. A demanding personal commitment to clean space and well lit volumes.
By changing axes and heights, alternating the empty and full, creating a balance of masses, generating light, superimposing surfaces and varying scale, I seek to create a dialogue between these elements in order to compose a complex and singular space to serve the user. To do so, I emerge myself in the project – accompany and carry it – unrelentingly seeking inventive and generous solutions.
photos © Jean Marie MONTHIERS
MARRAKECH, MOROCCO | THE FOBE HOUSE
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.
We used local materials and techniques like clay for the exterior walls, tadelack for the baths and stones from the Ourika valley for the floors. 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.
photos © Jean Marie MONTHIERS
THE FOBE HOUSE
The land is located about ten kilometers south of Marrakech. Flat, mostly drowned under a heat veil that hides horizon. It is only from December to March that the snowy atlas appears In this 2.5 hectares area the buildings occupy only 240m ².
The volumes and their arrangements permit to avoid a floating effect in this empty space. Before discovering the layout we first need to go along the clay walls, which remote the neighbors away while allowing the sight of whites geometries. Once we cross through the metal gate , earth tinted, we are suddenly plunged into a strange world.
Three white steles frame and seek the longitudinal axis of the house in the center of the field. On the right side, the Guard house, two mixed cubes, is close to a totem fireplace and faces the double garage all in length studded with small openings. These simple elements articulate the vacuum around and focus the eye towards the house itself.
photos © Jean Marie MONTHIERS
Paradoxically simple and complex: a foliation of longitudinals sails between which stages the project program; tall windows; sets of geometric cutouts; framing, especially from the livingroom across the pool and its bleachers toward the atlas.
Fobe House under construction:
photo © Guilhem Eustache
Fobe House – Building Information
Program: House
Location: Tassoultante, Marrakech, Morocco
Address: village of Tassoultante / Amizmiz road – 9.2 km from Marrakech
Completion: 2007
Project areas:
Private residence: 171,96 sqm
Guard house: 20,20 sqm
Garage: 35,08 sqm
Pool house: 13,12 sqm
Total: 240,36 sqm on 2,5 ha
Plantations: 23 olive tree, 10 palm, 450 eucalyptus, 200 mimosa, 20 fruit trees
Commissioner: private, Belgian film producer
Architect: Guilhem EUSTACHE (Born in Nîmes / south of France)
Moroccan correspondent: Hicham BELHOUARI, architect / Marrakech / Morocco
Photographs: Jean-Marie MONTHIERS
Guilhem Eustache
photo © Ian Scigliuzzi
‘Find the bases of architecture / place the individual at the core of the project’
After graduating in 1986 from the Architecture School of Paris (l´Ecole Spéciale d´Architecture de Paris), my projects in France include day care centers, a school, the renovation of a private residence as well as several lofts and apartments. I´ve also worked with a Belgian film producer on a series of projects in Marrakech and more recently in Brazil with a house all in curves. Improving the quality of life has long been my professional creed, where the core value is space rather than the object. A demanding personal commitment to clean space and well lit volumes.
A singular universe to be seen and understood. By changing axes and heights, alternating the empty and full, creating a balance of masses, generating light, superimposing surfaces and varying scale, I seek to create a dialogue between these elements in order to compose a complex and singular space to serve the user.
To do so, I emerge myself in the project – accompany and carry it – unrelentingly seeking inventive and generous solutions. Constant in my choices and orientations, my projects are inscribed in the continuity of a tradition that responds to the demands of both the environment and society. Respecting the local context without succumbing to folklore, a quest for lasting simplicity.
Fobe House site plan:
image © Guilhem Eustache
House in Marrakech images / information from Guilhem Eustache studio
Guilhem Eustache studio is based in Paris, France
Location: Tassoultante, Marrakech, Morocco, North Africa
Morocco Architecture Developments
Contemporary Morocco Buildings
Morocco Architecture Designs – chronological list
Another Marrakech building on e-architect:
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Anfa Place, Casablanca, northern Morocco : mixed-use Moroccan development
Foster + Partners
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Florence place, north eastern Morocco
Mikou Design Studio
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Rabat Grand Theatre, northern Morocco
Zaha Hadid Architects
Rabat Grand Theatre
Casablanca Twin Center, northwestern Morocco
Architect : Ricardo Bofill – ‘Taller de Arquitectura
Casablanca Twin Center
Buildings / photos for the Fobe House Tassoultante – Marrakech Property page welcome
Website: Visit Morocco