Morocco Oasis Retreat competition Honorable mention winners - Anas Koubaiti, Theo Marie Alban Pagnon and Louis Samy Aimé Bouvrande

We’d like to take the opportunity to introduce you to the Honorable mention winners of our "Morocco Oasis Retreat" competition – Anas Koubaiti, Theo Marie Alban Pagnon and Louis Samy Aimé Bouvrande from Morocco!

Honorable mention winners from Morocco

Please tell us about your company (when it was founded, where it is based, how many employees, etc) Alternatively, if you do not have a company, please give us some insights on your own professional/academia background.

KAPT Studio is a young architectural practice based in Paris and Rabat, founded in 2022 by Anas Koubaiti and Théo Pagnon, both engineers and architects. With nearly a decade of experience each as project managers in renowned international architecture firms in the United Kingdom and France, they joined forces to address projects ranging from urban developments to interior design and furniture. In addition to their professional work, Anas and Théo have been sharing their knowledge by teaching together at architecture schools since 2020. Their designs focus on innovation, aesthetics, sustainability, and practicality, aiming to creatively solve the constraints and challenges they encounter. A commitment to sustainability is at the core of their approach. Now a team of three with the arrival of Louis Bouvrande, KAPT Studio strives to create meaningful architecture that makes a positive impact. In 2024, they were awarded the ‘Europe 40under40®’ prize for their work.

Brief information about the projects that you/your company have been involved with. For instance, what scale have you focused on/preferred, any significant projects where the company/ individuals have been Involved?

Our dual expertise as architects and engineers enables us to find synergies between disciplines, merging practices to imagine solutions at diverse scales and across multiple geographic contexts. Architecture is as much an art of transformation as it is an art of construction, and we aim to develop a holistic vision of our practice. Our hybrid culture, both technical and artistic, leads us to come up with bold, poetic yet restrained proposals that are rooted in their context and timeless..

Recent projects such as the family home in Rabat, Morocco, and the Santa Teresa Ecolodge in Costa Rica, illustrate this vision through a range of environmental features integrated into the DNA of the buildings. Particular attention is paid to detail throughout the design process.

Kapt studio is currently working on two projects to renovate and elevate existing traditional buildings. The first involves adding a timber-framed volume to an old watermill in the Cévennes in the south of France, and the second is an extension to a typical vernacular house in Toulouse. In both projects, the practice is exploring sustainability with a ‘low-tech’ approach that seeks to move away from excessive engineering. Instead, it opts for sobriety and technological responsibility, seeking to reconnect with architecture by focusing on site-specific science, spatial ‘engineering’, climate analysis and materials selection to create a new narrative that inspires people and respects the environment.

What does architecture mean to you and what is the role of an architect in your society?

Architecture must serve as a catalyst for positive change in society by promoting sustainable development, inclusion, and cultural preservation. As architects, we see ourselves as facilitators in the service of the public good, attentively listening to the needs and aspirations of the stakeholders around us. We believe in fostering collaboration and actively engaging with local actors, as their visions and contributions are invaluable in creating meaningful spaces. The projects we advocate for and envision reflect our fundamental values and our commitment to shaping a better society through architecture. By focusing on sustainable design and usage, we strive to create spaces that promote well-being, fostering a sense of belonging, connection, and harmony with nature, while minimizing the environmental impact of our designs.

We also view the architect as an indispensable protagonist in addressing the challenges of the ongoing ecological transition. However, the architect should not elevate ecology as a banner but reposition it as the fundamental premise of any creative endeavour. We must demonstrate how ecology can be embodied, serving as a source of beauty rather than constraints or additional costs, and how it can re-enchant the ordinary through poetic and artistic interventions. It's about transforming the ordinary into the extraordinary, using simple elements like form, light, and sustainable materials to create beauty.

We conceive our profession as an art of storytelling to make places memorable, driven by the desire to imagine and design sensitive, contextual, and contemporary architectures. We are technicians, poets, and aesthetes, attentive to the elegance and beauty of our projects and the places they inhabit. Our philosophy is based on the transparent expression of the program, the articulation of the building components, and the mastery of detail. We seek to rediscover an architecture of the real and the visible, where desirability and joy surround the practice. Finally, we see the architect as a curious generalist and a keen observer of societal issues, with a voice in shaping our future. Society as a whole would benefit from architects taking on diverse and varied challenges, even those far removed from their original practice, to attempt to resolve them.

Why do you participate in architecture competitions?

Architectural competitions serve as boundless playgrounds to explore unique contexts, narratives, and locations. They grant us the freedom to transform constraints into opportunities, allowing us to test bold ideas and bring them to life for the world to see. These competitions act as mirrors, reflecting alternative realities far from our daily routines and inviting us to experiment without limits. In this way, they stimulate our creativity, pushing us to step off the beaten path and propose pure, uncompromising visions. Competitions are also platforms for telling captivating stories. The art of storytelling is essential in our practice, as it enables us to create compelling logic from an expressed need and a given location. Finally, these competitions are powerful means of communication and visibility for a young agency like ours. They provide a unique stage to express our ideas, ethics, and vision, allowing us to push the boundaries of traditional architecture and inspire change.

What advice would you give to individuals who struggle to decide whether it would be beneficial for them to participate in architecture competitions?

It can be difficult at first, but once you start developing your idea, it's very rewarding to take it further and see it come to fruition. It's also important to find competitions and projects that arouse curiosity and spark ideas, so that you can take your proposal forward with sincerity and without compromise. It's also an excellent opportunity to produce beautiful architectural proposals with images, sketches, plans or ideas that can be reused later to support another project in a different context. Lastly, architectural competitions can serve as ‘launching pads’ for future opportunities and provide visibility for emerging practices.