Aziza Chaouni Projects - Urban Trend: Public Space
Aziza Chaouni Projects
Fez, Morocco, and Toronto, Canada
Urban Trend: Public Space
Multiflex, 2013
5 min., 4 sec.
Learn more about Public Space on 100urbantrends.org: http://www.bmwguggenheimlab.org/100ur...
This video was commissioned as part of Participatory City: 100 Urban Trends from the BMW Guggenheim Lab, on view at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum from October 11, 2013 - Jan 5, 2014. Learn more at http://www.guggenheim.org/100urbantrends.
Bio:
Aziza Chaouni is the principal of Aziza Chaouni Projects (azizachaouniprojects.com), multidisciplinary design firm with offices in Fez, Morocco, and Toronto, Canada. Chaouni is also an assistant professor at the Daniels Faculty of Architecture Landscape and Design, Toronto, where she has led the Designing Ecological Tourism (DET) research group since 2008. DET has worked in several regions of the Moroccan Saharan desert as well as in the protected area of Shobak, located north of Petra, Jordan. Chaouni was born and raised in Fez, Morocco, and completed an undergraduate engineering degree at Columbia University and a masters degree at Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Aziza Chaouni Projects and Chaouni's former firm (Bureau E.A.S.T., with partner Takako Tajima) have been recognized with top awards, including the Progressive Architects (P/A) Award (2007) and Citation (2012); Holcim Foundation Award for Sustainable Construction, Global Gold Prize (2009) and Africa/Middle East Region Gold Prize (2008); the Architectural League of New York Young Architects Award (2009); Environmental Design Research Association Great Places Award (2009); and the American Society of Landscape Architects Design Award (2010). Chaouni's work has been published and exhibited internationally, at the International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam (2009) among others.
Statement:
Multiflex (2013) is a multipurpose space and cafe owned and managed by the NGO Foundation Esprit de Fez (FEF). As the activities of FEF, which had traditionally focused on cultural and spiritual events, diversified to include seminars, public forums, and exhibitions, the group asked Aziza Chaouni Projects to create a multipurpose space.
Crafted from an existing storage building, the addition was conceived to house a cafe, lounge, meetings areas, movie projections, and conference rooms. Aziza Chaouni Projects gave the building a facelift, adding a secondary, porous facade, extending the nearby plaza into the cafe interior, introducing hybrid furniture/bookshelves on wheels, opening the space's back wall onto a neighboring historic wall, and adding an accessible green roof. All furniture and construction was done by local craftsmen from Fez, using local materials. Multiflex is the first multipurpose, NGO-run public space of its kind in the old village of Fez, creating a contemporary cultural hub.
Multiflex was created by Mani Tabrizi (designer), Bassima Jazouli (architectural technician), John Bautista (architectural intern), Vjosana Shkurti (video art and model), and Aziza Chaouni (principal architect).