Usually representing spirits, ancestors or the primordial couple, these figures were placed in shrines and treated with great respect. Through a wide range of style, scale, belief and function the couples depicted share a timeless, serene equality necessary to the continuity of their societies.

Volubilis / Kilo Architectures

Architects: Kilo Architectures
Location: Meknès, Morocco
Interior Décor: Kilo Architectures
Project Year: 2013
Photographer: Kilo Architectures
Website: www.kilospace.com

Program: Exhibition spaces, reception center, laboratories, offices
Size/ Surface : 4.200 m²

- 26 May 2016
- Datum Editorial
Residential , Museums , Selected Works , Conservation , Conservation Architecture , Contemporary , Contemporary African Directory ,

From the Architects
Set within the most visited archaeological site in the Kingdom of Morocco, this project seeks to enhance the historical and symbolic significance of this unique UNESCO World Heritage site.

Volubilis / Kilo Architectures

The site is an exceptionally well-preserved example of an ancient Roman colonial town and one of several antique sites in Morocco.

Volubilis / Kilo Architectures

Due to the lack of urban development in the immediate surroundings, the site today closely resembles what the Romans saw in their time. In order to highlight the dramatic visual impact of the antique ruins upon entry to the site, the volume of the museum is embedded into the hillside so that visitors do not initially perceive its presence.

Volubilis / Kilo Architectures

The project is conceived as a narrow imprint on the perimeter of the ancient territory, eight meters wide by two hundred meters long. The building consists of a succession of wooden volumes along an extended retaining wall, simultaneously buried and suspended in relationship to the rolling landscape.

Volubilis / Kilo Architectures

The project behaves much like the ruins it houses, and the tectonics of its construction and the lifespan of its materials inherently propose a strategy for the building’s eventual disappearance.

CLICK TO REVIEW LINKED STORY

Cohabitation / Kilo Architectures
This project, consisting of five experimental houses within a communal farm, proposes alternative modes of domesticity and co-habitation, both within the home and between homes. A line is not inherently a domestic form; it does not shelter or enclose. However, when faced wit...

- © Volubilis – Meknès Kilo Architectures 04
- © Volubilis – Meknès Kilo Architectures 09
- © Volubilis – Meknès Kilo Architectures 05
- © Volubilis – Meknès Kilo Architectures 10
- © Volubilis – Meknès Kilo Architectures 011
- © Volubilis – Meknès Kilo Architectures 07
- © Volubilis – Meknès Kilo Architectures 01 02
- © Volubilis – Meknès Kilo Architectures 12
- © Volubilis – Meknès Kilo Architectures 01
- © Volubilis – Meknès Kilo Architectures 08
- © Volubilis – Meknès Kilo Architectures 06
- © Volubilis – Meknès Kilo Architectures 01 03

SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS

If you want your own avatar and keep track of your discussions with the community, sign up to archiDATUM >>

SELECTED WORKS

- Backpack for Modernist Lady / Phillip Lühl
- 06 Jul 2016
The original house was designed in 1968 by Stauch and Partners as a house and studio for an artist, the sister of the architect. It is a ...
- Architectural Sheng: The Good, the Bad and Outright Banalities of Architecture in Africa
- 15 Mar 2016
I was looking out from the fifth storey of a university building in the heart of Rome. A large window framed my view southwards to a mast...
- House 02 Hyde Park / Daffonchio & Associates Architects
- 19 Apr 2017
The house is set on a secluded, tranquil stand surrounded by established trees. The main house consists of 2 wings: the living wing and t...

CONTEMPORARY AFRICAN DIRECTORY

- Fobe House / Guilhem Eustache
- 24 Mar 2016
For many years I regularly visited Morocco. From the first trip I was bewitched by that country and the three projects studied to date ar...
- Querol House / Alberto Morell Sixto
- 21 Jul 2016
The Charley's Gap House in famous' Blixen's famous Karen is a beautiful abstraction of a little Savannah inside a one acre plot. The hous...
- Victoria 73 House / SAOTA
- 19 Dec 2016
The property had an existing house, which completely under-utilized the site’s fantastic characteristics. The brief called for a dynamic ...