4pm in the Desert

We visited the Hara site four times before we made a single material decision. The first three visits were in the morning, which tells you almost nothing useful about a site in that part of Fès. The fourth visit was in the late afternoon, and everything became clear.

There is a specific quality of light that arrives at the Hara site around four in the afternoon. The sun drops behind the medina hills and the colour of the valley shifts from pale ochre to something closer to burnt sienna. Long horizontal shadows move slowly across the terrain. It lasts about forty minutes. If you have not seen a site in that light, you do not really know it.

Every material we chose for Hara was tested against that hour. The stone for the facade needed to hold warmth without becoming heavy. The interior tadelakt required enough texture to catch shadow without feeling rough underfoot. Even the cedar we selected for the window surrounds was chosen partly because of how it reads in low angled light rather than the flat overhead light of a showroom.

This is not a romantic process. It is a practical one. Materials that look resolved in a studio presentation can fail completely on site, and the most common reason is light. A surface that photographs beautifully under controlled conditions can become oppressive in the actual environment it inhabits.

The architects we work with on every project are asked to spend time on site at different hours before they finalise anything. It adds time. It is always worth it. Hara is the clearest example we have of what that patience produces. The building reads differently at every hour of the day, and at four in the afternoon it is exactly what we hoped it would be.