Mikou Design Studio

By Ingrid Spencer

Twin sisters Salwa and Selma Mikou, principals of Paris-based Mikou Design Studio, were introduced to architecture through living with their family in a traditional riyad in the heart of the medina in Fes, Morocco. “The house was like a white and luminous void inside the labyrinthine typology of the city,” says Selma. “The contrast between the very thin spaces of the streets and the open and generous space in the patio of our house was very powerful.” The sisters say those images have always stayed with them: stepping from a dim alleyway into a dark vestibule, then emerging into a sunlit central courtyard around which the house rises. The house had no windows on the street side, as its focus was on the private oasis within.

Home and hearth having left such strong reverberations in the minds of the Mikou sisters, it might seem strange that the two have gone on to build an architectural practice that includes no single-family residences. From working at other firms — Salwa worked as a project architect for Ateliers Jean Nouvel, in charge of projects in Beirut, Kuwait, and Seoul, while Selma spent those same years as project architect for Renzo Piano Building Workshop, in charge of projects in Abu Dhabi and London — they started Mikou Design Studio in 2005 and jumped directly into designing public institutional buildings. The sisters run their 10-person firm as a workshop where everyone collaborates on every project, like “a big family.” Their first built project — a pre- and elementary school complex in Saint-Denis, France — reveals a bit of their Moroccan history. The school has corridors along the length of the building on both stories, connecting clusters of classrooms oriented around gardens and courtyards.

You can also see traces of the sisters’ influences in some of their many current projects on the boards: A theater complex in Dunkerque, France, with four different facades that react to the various urban situations they face; the Institute for Islamic Culture in Paris’s 18th Arrondissement, an elegant design with structural arches that intersect nonorthogonally; the Saint-Etienne, France, headquarters building for the URSSAF, France’s social security administration, which includes access to green space for every office in the 108,000-square-foot space. All large-scale, and each with humanistic touches that belie the projects’ institutional nature and size. “We love cultural projects,” says Selma. “Museums, theaters, spaces for rest, leisure, entertainment. Towers and vertical typologies also. Large-scale projects bring us a lot of satisfaction because they make us think about new ways of living, how to cross activities, and to bring nature and imagination into public spaces.”

While 10-person Mikou Design Studio continues to compete in competitions for projects in Europe and beyond and participate in installations (they’re currently working on one in Casablanca), the sisters are also seeking residential clients. “We want to work with more private clients because we feel that human relationships bring richness to projects,” says Selma. “But ultimately, if a client is intelligent, sophisticated, and needs our help, then all projects are interesting. Our credo is how to give more because a building is above all a place of giving.” 

 

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