LM HOUSE
Elements Lab
ARCHITECTS
Elements Lab
MANUFACTURERS
Cassina Usa, Ligne Roset, Minotti, Poliform, Ikea
LEAD ARCHITECT
Mehdi Berrada
PHOTOGRAPHS
Doublespace Photography
YEAR
2017
LOCATION
Casablanca, Morocco
CATEGORY
Houses Interiors
Text description provided by architect.
Casablanca, the economic capital of Morocco, is a hyperactive and chaotic city of nearly 5 million inhabitants where cars are steadily replacing trees.
When designing a home for my family, I had in mind the idea of a quiet place away from chaos, a fortress against the constant agitation of everyday life.
Gradually, this idea was nourished by the image of the Riad, this typical Arab-Andalusian house modestly closed off from the public and open in its center on a planted patio.
Source of light and fresh air, the patio is also a peaceful and luminous counterbalance of the narrow streets typical of the ancient Medinas.
Located in the heart of Oasis, a residential neighborhood relatively close to the city center, the land plot that was to receive Villa LM did not allow for the architectural typology of a Riad; comprised notably of a dense, pedestrian urban fabric dating before the advent of the automobile.
It was then necessary to adapt the intimate essence of the Riad to a modern typology inherited from the French protectorate, namely a town house with a garden around the periphery: the exact opposite of the riad. Thus was born this house conceived as a protective bunker in the middle of a shield of greenery.
