MOROCCAN OASIS

Studio KO crafts a rule-breaking home base for fearless clients in Casablanca

- ELLIE PITHERS

When Olivier Marty and Karl Fournier of the Parisian architecture firm Studio KO were asked by a Moroccan businessman to design a family home in Casablanca, they were able to realize a long-held dream. The pair have found considerable success in North Africa since they established their company in 2000, showcasing their rustic brand of sumptuous minimalism in vacation homes for the late style icon Marella Agnelli and the entrepreneur Patrick Guerrand-Hermès, later winning plaudits for the sculptural Musée Yves Saint Laurent Marrakech. They now employ more than a dozen people in their office in that city, in addition to a team of 60 in Paris. But they had never scored a commission in Morocco from anyone who wasn't an expat.

The client, a prominent executive, and his wife, who are well-connected hosts in Casablanca's cosmopolitan bonne société, didn't want a vernacular villa, a colonial-style manse, or a white box-all of which have a place in the city's diverse architectural playbook. They took confidence in Studio KO's skill in creating buildings that are rooted in culture and history yet retain a confrontational oddity. So, when the architects proposed a Brutalist theme, inspired by concrete buildings erected during Casablanca's 1950s bout of urban planning, they ran with it. "They wanted to be surprised," recalls Marty of the open-ended brief, "and they never feared what people would say." Fournier elaborates: "There were a lot of rumors around the house. But it's a bunker! It has no windows!' They found it funny." Adds Marty, approvingly: "They are anti-snob."