M Le Monde — Manal Rachdi sees the city in green

Research Head

Between the young Moroccan architect and nature, the relationship has always been very intense. Her project, somewhat audacious, is moreover among those selected by the City of Paris within the framework of Reinventing Paris, a competition intended to restore the imaginative process to an adaptable and dynamic trajectory. In collaboration with star architect Sou Fujimoto, Manal Rachdi imagined Mille arbres, a vast green building spanning the périphérique. A structure that will be built at Porte Dorée by 2021.

Based in Paris, the architect with a green thumb also worked for several years at Duncan Lewis and then at Jean Nouvel, where she participated in the early drafts of the Philharmonie. In 2009, she founded her agency, OXO Architectes, and develops her own ideas, which she realizes with prestigious partners such as the Danish agency BIG. Her passion for nature dates back to vacations spent surrounded by trees in Beni Mellal in Morocco, where her grandfather owned land. "Nature is an architectural element, not merely aesthetic. You can touch it, it pleases, it can scratch." In Nanterre, this same vision led her to design the Rocher, a residential building creating like a quarry and equipped with green patios. Another way to demonstrate the green reclamation of the city.

— B.-C.