ADER-Fès | Fez, Morocco 2011

Place Lalla Yeddouna is located in the Medina of Fez, the largest car-free urban zone in the world. The buildings in Place Lalla Yeddouna date between the 10th to the 20th centuries, and this project aims to encourage the city’s artisans to flourish there through careful refurbishment and rebuilding. Brought into these buildings will be spaces for educational programs, artisan production, shops, restaurants, cafés and even residences.

The proposed architecture would be one of subtractions, linings and castings, treating the existing built form as the base for new spatial arrangement. The diversity of new spaces are brought together through materiality: a palette of reinforced concrete frames filled in with rendered block work; and handrails, expansion joints and ironmongery would be formed in brass, from local industry.

"The project offers a discourse on the role of preservation within contemporary culture... presenting a highly valuable strategy for addressing the transformation of historic urban fabrics." Jury Citation