Dar Kemgia: Earthy Moroccan House Immersed in Palmeraie Gardens Beauty
Dar Kemgia unfolds as a low-slung house in Marrakesh, Morocco, set among palms and irrigated gardens. Studio KO draws on the nearby ramparts and desert tones to build a residence where earthy walls, patterned ceilings, and long water views hold daily life in close connection to the Palmeraie. Each room leans into craft, color, and tactility.
A narrow water mirror pulls the eye toward a terracotta volume, flanked by palms and low planting under the clear Palmeraie sky. Sun glances off striped pool tiles, then slides into deep arcades and cool interior rooms.
This house in Marrakesh’s Palmeraie is a private residence shaped by Studio KO, using the city’s ramparts as a conceptual anchor. Constructed as a sequence of earthy rooms around gardens and water, it draws guests inward from the desert heat toward layered interiors. The story here is told through color, texture, and objects that give each volume a distinct, lived-in character.
Grounded In Earth Tones
From the first terrace, clay-colored walls and paved walkways wrap the long pool, echoing the fortified geometry of Marrakesh. Low platforms with green cushions line the axis, keeping the horizon horizontal and calm. Inside, thick earthen surfaces continue into the living room, where built-in seating and a broad, dark table rest on layered rugs that soften the hard shell. Light cuts across these surfaces during the day, sharpening the relief of recesses, niches, and shelving.
Living Rooms As Salons
The main sitting room reads like a salon, its generous sofa perimeter encouraging long conversations and shared meals. A patterned ceiling in warm tones overhead tightens the room and concentrates the atmosphere below. Books, ceramics, and small metal objects line open shelves so the eye moves from object to object rather than along blank walls. Every element supports gathering: low tables hold trays and books, while the surrounding circulation lets people drift between corners without crossing the central conversation.
Rooms Tuned By Color
Each bedroom turns into its own world through precise palettes and textures. One is wrapped in burnished browns, with a low platform bed, woven textiles, and a dark tiled wall framing a fireplace. Another shifts to pale plaster and charcoal accents, pairing a ribbed headboard wall with black woven chairs and a cut-out rug that breaks the floor plane. A third room leans into saturated blue, from bedding to rug, anchored by a sun motif artwork and a coffered ceiling that patterns shade overhead.
Crafted Baths And Thresholds
Bathrooms refine this material vocabulary into quieter, more tactile rituals. One bath sets a round tub within an arched niche, framed by slim windows that catch glimpses of palms outside. Another works in warm stone, with a long, veined counter, open shelves for towels, and twin circular mirrors suspended in front of a garden-facing window. Covered outdoor dining and circulation passages bridge inside and out, their built-in benches, woven chairs, and pottery-lined shelves turning transitions into lived rooms.
As the day cools, the pool’s striped surface darkens and tall palms edge the view in silhouette. Rooms glow from within, their varied palettes reading as discreet lanterns along the garden. The house settles back into the Palmeraie, grounded by earth, water, and the crafted interiors that hold everyday routines close to both.
Photography courtesy of Studio KO
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