Weathered concrete volumes half-buried in desert dunes

Hospitality · Agafay, Morocco · 2023

Atlas Desert Lodge

Twenty rooms, half-buried, facing the Atlas.

Overview

Atlas Desert Lodge disappears into the landscape by design. Its twenty suites are set into the dunes, their walls poured with pigment mixed from the local sand.

Thick walls and deep reveals keep the rooms cool through the day. At dusk the terraces open to the Atlas mountains and the lodge’s only pool.

Location: Agafay, Morocco
Year: 2023
Status: Completed
Typology: Hospitality
Coordinates: 31.4637° N, 8.1956° W

Gallery

A closer look.

Three images. Select any one to see it full screen.

03 / 03An earthen vaulted passage in warm, soft light

Drawings

Drawn to be built.

Plan, section and elevation, from the point of arrival to the pool terrace, each drawn to scale on the structural grid.

The ground floor, set out on a 6 × 5 m structural grid.36 × 10 m · 6 rooms · 360 m² ground floor

Materials

Made of few things.

Three materials, chosen at the source and left to age. Nothing is painted to look like something else.

Fair-faced Concrete
Cast once, in timber formwork we draw ourselves. The tie holes stay: they are how you read the pour.
Honed Travertine
Selected in blocks at the quarry, honed and never polished. It warms in the sun and stays cool underfoot.
Charred Oak
Scorched the old Japanese way, oiled, then left alone. The char is the weatherproofing, and it deepens with every winter.