MOROCCO

A decor project for a private event in Morocco.

We took Moroccan culture through its crafts rather than its ornament: leather, chased metal, henna — body art made on the spot. We wanted the references to be there without being literal or too obvious.

The aesthetic is total black: the event runs on a black dress code, and the space was built to match it. The palette is restrained. Black dominates, with greenery and terracotta added to it — a nod to Moroccan clay.

The space works in two modes, day and night. The first hall is the daytime one; it lives until sunset. Inside we built an enormous oasis: plants descend from the ceiling and grow up from below. The stage stands on its own in the middle of the room and works in the round, so the performance can be seen from every side. At first the oasis is densely closed, but over the evening the performers carry the big green plants away little by little and it opens up — by the time the artists and live musicians come on, the ones you really want to see properly. At night this hall stops being a stage and becomes a lounge for the guests.

The second hall opens after sunset, and it is entirely black: no colour can be made out in it. Even the plants here are black, the tropical ones included. The stage is built from balls of woollen thread — the same thread Moroccan carpets are woven from.

A separate object is the fountain with black water.

The veranda works as a tea area, and it can only be reached after midnight, when the black dance floor opens. It is kept in the same monochrome palette.

The lighting is built on heavy smoke and lasers: the space fills with smoke completely, and the performers vanish inside it.