Exemplo_Morocco Pavilion_Expo 2020_Dubai

© Design phase 3D Images: OUALALOU + CHOI

Morocco Pavilion – Expo 2020 Dubai

(Expo 2020 Dubai has been postponed and will be held from 1 October 2021 to 31 March 2022)

Location: Dubai, UAE

Status: Under construction

Client: Kingdom of Morocco Pavilion - Expo 2020 Dubai

Program: Exhibition, Food and Beverage (Traditional Moroccan Restaurant, Tea Room, Modern Street Food Area), Lounge, Event Space, Office & Shop

Site Area: 1467 m²

GFA: 6057 m²

Architects: OUALALOU + CHOI (O+C)m; Design Principals: Tarik Oualalou, Linna Choi; 

Local Architect: e.construct

Consultants: Earth Structures Group

Engineering: e.construct, TESS

Text by Christele Harrouk

"OUALALOU + CHOI has designed the Morocco Pavilion at the 2020 Expo in Dubai, showcasing how traditional Moroccan design and construction techniques can find new relevance in contemporary design and urban development efforts. As a pioneering work of rammed earth construction—the building’s rammed earth facade will be the largest of its kind-the Pavilion aims to push the technical and creative limits of Morocco’s traditional building materials to new heights, while paying tribute to the country’s rich and varied culture and landscape.

Imagined by the award-winning international team of OUALALOU + CHOI, based in Paris and Casablanca, the Morocco Pavilion is scheduled to open in October 2020 (postponed), with construction underway.

Comprised of twenty two stacked rectangular volumes visually resonant with vernacular rammed earth villages in Morocco, the Pavilion encompasses fourteen exhibition spaces, a traditional Moroccan restaurant, a tea room, a modern street food area, a shop, an event space, an office space, and a lounge. Arranged vertically around a lush inner courtyard—an important spatial element in traditional Moroccan architecture—each of these spaces are connected by a continuous “inner street”, which begins at the building’s uppermost floor and gradually descends to the ground floor.

The Pavilion’s “street” organizes a set route between sequential exhibition spaces, allowing visitors to come into contact with and experience the different regions and cultures of Morocco. Along this exhibition route, the restaurant, tea room, lounge, and ten hanging gardens offer visitors moments of pause and framed views of the surrounding Expo as they descend to the Pavilion’s ground level.

© Concept Diagram: OUALALOU + CHOI

"Designed around an inner courtyard, a major spatial element in traditional Moroccan architecture, the different spaces of the pavilion are connected by a continuous “inner street”. The on-going path generates a “set route between sequential exhibition spaces, allowing visitors to come into contact with and experience the different regions and cultures of Morocco”, as they descend to the Pavilion’s ground level. In addition, people can navigate through the project from its eastern core, where a 15 m² elevating platform and exhibition space can bring up to 50 people at a time from the ground to the seventh floor."

© Site Photos: OUALALOU + CHOI

The Pavilion’s exterior envelope is composed of a 4000 m², 33 m high rammed earth facade, an ambitious technical feat pioneering in its advancement of rammed earth construction methods. Rammed earth, a traditional building material in Morocco, plays a key role in passively regulating indoor conditions in hot and arid places. Its use in the Pavilion proves that it is a material at once traditional and innovative, offering an example of how such building methods can serve to inspire more sustainable models of urban development. In conjunction with other passive strategies used in the design of the building, such as wooden interior facades which double as sunscreens, the rammed earth facade allows the Pavilion to answer fully to the demanding ecological standards of LEED.

In line with this commitment to sustainability, after the conclusion of the 2021 Expo the Pavilion will be converted into a housing complex, with existing facilities thoughtfully adapted into apartments, an 80 m² swimming pool, a fitness club, and a shared lounge.

For more information about this project visit OUALALOU + CHOI website