Fez | Morocco | Competition

The Place Lalla Yeddouna is one of the most ancient squares of the vieille ville, with a strategic position at the centre of Fes Bali –the old town of Fes–, next to the river that crosses the city. The urban recuperation of this strategic spot must be seen as an opportunity to improve the connection between the two banks of the river and to recover the historical identity of the city. Since the intervention area is a large urban gap, the project can be understood as a transition element between the ancient city of the Medina and this new freed area of the square above the river. The project aims to maintain the identity of the place and is conceived as a vast horizontal carpet covering the intervention area. This carpet, understood as a net of different densities, is used to connect the ancient part of the Medina with the new proposed buildings, reproducing the identity pattern of the city fabric and adopting the atmosphere of the traditional markets of the Medina and the covered streets of Morocco.