Mapping Context: Our Moroccan Architecture Journey Beyond the Competition
- Ondrej Chudy
- Jul 21
- 7 min read
Updated: Jul 29
After winning the Morocco Oasis Retreat architecture competition, our work was not done. In fact, the most important part was just beginning.
Architecture — at least the kind we believe in — doesn’t emerge from behind a screen. It doesn’t begin with drawings. It begins with people. With trust. With context.
In the weeks that followed the announcement, we entered into an open dialogue with the Benmira brothers — not about technical refinement, but about something more human. A shared recognition that in order to move forward, we would need to stand on the land. Look each other in the eyes. Speak not only about vision, but about how it might live, and with whom.
We travelled to Fez not to finalise a brief, but to begin a conversation in its proper setting — the real air, the real sun, the real silence. This Moroccan architecture journey wasn’t a milestone — it was a threshold. A way to reconnect vision with presence. A place where everything matters: how people arrive, how they sit, how the wind shifts between morning and dusk. This article is not a project update. It’s a reflection on a journey — part architectural, part cultural, entirely necessary.
Arriving in Fez — A Welcome at Dusk
We arrived in Fez on a Monday evening, 12 May 2025, each from a different city — Ondrej from London, Petr from Brno. Two separate routes converging at a new beginning. The flights landed within minutes of each other. By coincidence, we met in the immigration queue — that quiet in-between space where your mind catches up with the fact that you’ve arrived.
Fez revealed itself slowly. First the humidity, then the rhythm of movement, the unfamiliar tone of language surrounding us. There was no announcement of arrival — just a subtle shift in atmosphere. Waiting outside was Almamoun, one of the Benmira brothers, whose welcome was immediate but unhurried. From the start, the pace was not transactional. It was relational.
He drove us to Hotel Sahrai, a hillside retreat where contemporary architecture meets traditional tactility. The setting gave us space — to decompress, to observe, to adjust. And while the city began to come alive after sundown, we kept the evening deliberately quiet. There were no meetings that night. No formalities. Just a shared tea, a short walk through the terrace, and rest. Tomorrow, we would begin listening — not just to the clients, but to the city, the land, and whatever they chose to reveal.
City as Text — Reading the Streets of Fez
The following morning, our first full day in Morocco, began before the city did. Just after sunrise, we stepped into the cold water of the hotel’s pool — more ritual than sport, but no less invigorating. The 18-degree water sharpened our focus, reminding us that clarity sometimes begins in discomfort. After breakfast, Almamoun Benmira picked us up, and we moved into the streets of Fez — not as tourists, not as planners, but as listeners.
There was no fixed route. No agenda. Just a willingness to walk, pause, and pay attention. Fez doesn’t announce itself — it reveals itself. Slowly, in fragments. A shift in pavement texture. A sudden shadow. A stallholder calling out prices in a rhythm older than any map. Some moments felt orchestrated, others completely improvised.
You don’t “read” Fez the way you read a European city. There’s little hierarchy. Narrow corridors compress you, only to open into sudden courtyards. Façades crumble, yet stand with grace. Tilework appears where you least expect it. The logic is emotional, not diagrammatic.
We tried not to over-analyse.
Not everything had to become a reference. Not every corner needed to be photographed. The point was not to collect — but to absorb. To feel the weight of climate, history, and community shaping space in ways that go beyond design.
Later that afternoon, without having planned to, we decided to leave the city and head toward the site. It wasn’t in the schedule. But the momentum of the day — the energy of discovery — pulled us forward. We knew we’d be returning to the site again and again, but still, we wanted that first contact. Even just for a few hours. Even just to listen.
Reaching the Site — The Reservoir and the Silence
The road to the site stretched some 40 kilometres beyond Fez — first along a main highway, then veering onto dry, unpaved tracks that carved through undulating terrain. The further we travelled, the quieter it became. This wasn’t a place you stumble upon. There are no signs. No markers. No other cars. Only the occasional figure walking a herd of goats, and the distant shimmer of water — the Barrage Idriss Ier reservoir — anchoring the horizon.
Later that same afternoon, on our second day, we left the city and drove out to the site for the first time. It wasn’t planned — but the momentum of the day, and the pull of the unknown, made it feel necessary. We knew we would return in the coming days, but we wanted this first contact. Even briefly. Even just to listen.
When we finally arrived, the site felt vast. Not in scale, but in atmosphere. Silence here wasn’t emptiness — it was presence. A kind of acoustic architecture shaped by topography, vegetation, wind. Every contour in the land became a spatial proposition: shelter, exposure, elevation, shade.
The Benmira brothers had arranged for a small shelter to be built on site — a simple canopy, some seating, enough for us to meet, sketch, observe. It was modest, but generous. And it became our anchor for the next days. We didn’t speak much that first afternoon. But we listened. To the slope, to the light, to the pace of the wind. And to Almamoun — whose voice carried not just facts, but feeling. His reflections gave shape to the unspoken: memories of the place, ambitions for the project, instincts about scale and rhythm. Even after several hours, we didn’t feel like leaving. But as the sun lowered behind the hills, we packed up and began the slow return to the city — knowing that this was just the beginning.
Living the Land — Swimming, Talking, Returning
By Wednesday, a rhythm had begun to take shape. It was our third day in Morocco, and the second spent on site. Early mornings started with a plunge into the cold pool at the hotel — more ritual than sport, but no less invigorating. The 18-degree water sharpened our focus, reminding us that clarity sometimes begins in discomfort. After breakfast, we returned to the reservoir.
This time, we stayed longer. Watched more closely. Moved more slowly. The terrain, with its long, folded contours, invited exploration. We followed ridgelines, took photographs, tested the light. One area held a constant breeze; another, a pocket of stillness. Each zone felt like a chapter in a book we hadn’t yet written — a book made of silence, slope, and heat.
What changed that day wasn’t just our proximity to the land — it was our interaction with the client. The hours were filled not with formal meetings, but with shared time. Conversations that drifted between ideas, logistics, and something harder to define — intent. Where is the centre? What makes this place memorable? What role does water play in memory? We left as the light began to fold into the hills. Not with conclusions, but with a deeper awareness — of where we were, and where the conversation might go next.
The following day would bring more time on site — and the kind of openness that only comes after you’ve earned a little silence.
Scaling the Project – A Turning Point in Our Moroccan Architecture Journey
Thursday, our last full day in Morocco, unfolded without a clock. We arrived at the site in the morning and didn’t leave until long after dark. It was the longest we had spent in one place — and the most revealing.
There was no rush.
The sun was high, the breeze soft, and the water clearer than before. We swam in the reservoir. Grilled food beside the shore. Sat under the canopy as the light shifted. It was the kind of day where space begins to work on you — softening urgency, sharpening perception. But even in that relaxed rhythm, the conversations deepened. This wasn’t a review of drawings. It was a reset of perspective.
The Benmira brothers began sharing a broader vision: not just building the project we had proposed, but expanding it. Scaling the concept. Rethinking the scope — spatially, programmatically, financially. Not from critique, but from ambition. We listened, questioned, mapped scenarios in the dust. There were no contracts. No promises. But in that moment — between swims, between sentences — something shifted. The tone of the conversation became commitment. Not official, but felt. We didn’t solve everything that day. But we left with clarity: This project would grow. And if we were to grow with it, we would need to listen not only to the land — but to the business logic, the local dynamics, and the people shaping them.
Final Reflection — Presence Before Progress
In a profession defined by deliverables, it’s easy to mistake movement for progress. But some of the most meaningful steps happen off paper.
In conversation. In shared silence. In showing up.
Our journey to Morocco wasn’t a milestone. It was a threshold — between competition and continuity, between projection and presence. We spent five days immersed in a landscape we hadn’t yet drawn on paper, but had already begun to carry in our minds. The days were full, the conversations unhurried. And when Thursday faded into night, it felt like something had landed — not finished, but grounded.
Friday morning marked the departure.
We swam one last time. Packed up slowly. After breakfast, we returned the car and headed for the airport. Travel back was layered — Fes to Valencia, then on to London and Vienna. Petr would finish the journey to Brno by bus; Ondrej returned to home at Greenwich.
Even in transit, the project stayed with us.
Not as a task, but as a terrain — a shifting landscape of questions, possibilities and presence.
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