Project 06 — Observatory & researchers’ residency
Night Observatory
- Status
- Concept design
- Program
- Observatory & researchers’ residency
- Location
- Atlas Mountains, Morocco
- Area
- 3,800 m²
- Target year
- 2032
Night Observatory — concept design, axonometric study
The idea
A quiet tower for looking up — twelve residencies, one instrument, and the darkest sky within a night’s drive of three capitals.
Above 2,400 metres the Atlas offers what cities have abolished: true darkness. The observatory is a single calm shaft holding twelve researchers’ rooms, stacked below one instrument platform open to the sky.
Every window in the building faces the ground; only the top floor faces up. The architecture enforces the discipline the site demands — no stray light, no wasted view.
By day it is a monastery for science. By night the building disappears entirely, which is the point.