ABOUT Oualalou+Choi

The architecture and urban design practice of OUALALOU + CHOI (O+C) considers the architectural project as a means of negotiating complex situations, however foreign or obscure. Founded by Linna Choi and Tarik Oualalou in 2001, the office’s work exhibits a wide range of scales, typologies, and contexts that serve as investigations as much about exploring given project constraints as about questioning the limits of the design profession. Adamant that architectural strategies be integrated into a project long before and remain long after the traditional scope of architects, the studio’s international and multifaceted composition allows it to devise projects that resonate across various cultures, methods, and contexts.

This commitment propels the studio to propose architectural works that achieve depth before meaning, and offer enduring contributions to the built environment by moving beyond mere discussions of use value, aesthetics, or responsibility. Architecture becomes, here, an exploration of the intangible and immaterial.The practice's most significant works include the Volubilis Museum (nominated for the 2014 AFEX prize), the COP22 Village, the Morocco Pavilion for EXPO Milan (recipient of the 2015 EXPO Architecture award), the FLIJ tent constructed on the plaza of the Arab World Institute in Paris in 2014, and the "Décrypter le Panthéon" installation commissioned as part of France's 2017 July 14th festivities.

With offices in Paris and Casablanca, O+C's current projects are located in both France and abroad, and include the new Cultural Center of Morocco in Paris, the House for 5 Continents near Reims, and the new City of Mazagan south of Casablanca. Numerous exhibitions have showcased the studio’s work, most recently in Paris, Casablanca, London, and Copenhagen. In 2017, O+C also published a new monograph, "Territories of Disobedience," which critically examines a body of work spanning more than fifteen years.