Place Lalla Yeddouna

Fez, Morocco

2011

Client ADER-Fès

Buildings · Culture & Leisure · Conservation & Retrofit · Masterplanning

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.

‘This 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.’

Sir David Chipperfield

Floor plan featuring multiple interconnected rooms and corridors, with various rectangular and irregular shapes. Some sections are shaded, suggesting different zones or areas. The layout is complex, indicating a large building or campus.

Architectural site plan featuring multiple buildings, pathways, and greenery. The layout includes shaded areas representing structures and open spaces with tree illustrations. Pathways intersect throughout the plan, connecting various segments.

Architectural blueprint displaying three sections: vertical building elevation with multiple floors, facade detailing, and a detailed cross-section showing interior elements like furniture and stairs. Each section contains technical annotations.

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.

A modern building with weathered walls and large, rusticated stones in the foreground. A patio area has white chairs and tables, surrounded by greenery. The structure combines contemporary elements with aged textures.

Line drawing of various construction details and architectural elements, focusing on walls, staircases, and surfaces, architecture by MOXON Architects.

The alleyways and courtyards formed by the strategy of repair and retasking become the dominant theme of the urban pattern for the area, and with minimal material or formal gesture transform the existing Place Lalla Yeddouna and Oued Boukhrareb channel frontages into variegated and accessible public spaces, redefining the hierarchy from one of primary public space and otherwise discarded space to one of a richly textured and multi scaled public domain. The simple linking of the existing underused space on the site to the Place Lalla Yeddouna allows for circulatory interest and potential, in turn providing a meaningful location for trade and recreation.

A 3D model of an urban area with modern, varied-height buildings, bridges, and pathways, showcasing architecture by MOXON Architects.

Line drawings of architectural scenes with buildings, trees, and a canal, emphasizing structure and spatial composition by MOXON Architects.

Minimalist architectural scene with textured concrete walls and a smooth pathway. A lone window and dark entryway are visible. Sunlight casts shadows on the structures, and a small green tree is seen above the wall in the distance.

Minimalist courtyard with a tree, reflecting pool, and geometric patterned walls. A concrete bench sits beside the water, and sunlight casts soft shadows on the surfaces, creating a serene and tranquil ambience.

Where the new circulatory alleys are formed through an existing building footprint, the method has been to expropriate portions of the ground floor for the route through but then locally increase the volume to create new compact courtyards within the body of the buildings. These courtyards are a familiar aspect of the Meddina of Fez and wider Moroccan typology, but furthermore in this instance become serviceable and useful ancillary public spaces in support of the primary amenity areas along the channel front and in Place Lalla Yeddouna itself.