Florence Square, by Mikou Design Studio, is situated in a strategic area in the new town of Fez. The square is structured by a main urban axis, a broad boulevard with a central island generating an important pedestrian flow. The remodeling of Florence Square in Fez aims to create a space for encounters and meetings at a pedestrian scale and the scale of the neighborhood, but also a place clearly identifiable as a representative part of the modern Fez.

This symbolic place evokes Florence to the people of Fez, inspires and moves them. It is a vehicle for dialogue between cultures and recalls the journey of architectural forms. In designing the square, we were inspired by a strong and symbolic figure in the Florentine urban landscape, the octagonal form of the Baptistery of San Giovanni. We felt it essential to bring strong architectural elements to Florence square to give it an urban presence and limit it spatially.

Architect: Mikou Design Studio
Salwa Mikou, Selma Mikou, Cécile Jalby, Iskra Pencheva, Gwenaël Jerrett, Ludivine Specht
Client: City of Florence
Programme: Urban piazza and parking underground
Budget: 5 M €
Surface: 10 000 m2
Location: Fez

About Mikou Design Studio

The two partners, Salwa and Selma Mikou were born in Fes Marocco in 1975. After attending school in Paris (Paris Belleville) and Lausanne (EPFL), they received their diploma on Architecture and Urban design in 2000. They co-founded Mikou Design Studio in 2005.

Mikou Design Studio is a place of creation and experimentation in architecture and its inter-disciplinary cross-fertilization. Mikou Design Studio is currently involved in a large number of projects throughout France, Germany and Morocco, with a focus on cultural, educational, housing and offices.

"We work in a continuous workshop spirit with a multidisciplinary team of architects, engineers, graphic artists, scenographers and town planners from very different cultural backgrounds. Every project is an excuse for re-questioning and redefining the meaning of a brief, a function, and an urban, social and human context, in order to invent new ways of living, places for sharing and gathering that are more sensitive and more sensual, and which stimulate feelings. Our aim is to get away from preconceptions of form and function in order to transmit more and better. "

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