Background
The founders of Studio KO, Karl Fournier and Olivier Marty, met during their studies at the Beaux-Arts in Paris. In 2000, they created their architecture and interior design agency, which now employs some fifty employees. With offices in Paris, Marrakesh and London they seduce the world with their clean architectural lines and their respect for the surrounding environment, focusing on local and natural materials.
Signature style
The name Studio KO echoes the timeless aesthetics of the architects Karl Fournier and Olivier Marty. Studio KO defends an architecture that blends tradition with modernity, using clean lines and raw materials such as stone, wood or hammered iron, rejecting the smooth; favoring texture.
They love
Karl Fournier and Olivier Marty have been carrying out projects all over Europe, Morocco and the United States for more than 10 years. The creative tandem are celebrated for a spirit where eclectic styles respond to a singular process, developing each project’s own narrative art, where space, light and materials constitute the essential grammar. Public spaces, private homes, urban or part of extraordinary natural scenery… each project is a reason to play. To reveal. No blank page but a thread that weaves a project to highlight its uniqueness, the unique way it will be lived and lived in.
Showstoppers
Studio KO plays with materials like others play with words, reinventing the senses it awakens. Here, a glazed surface is adorned with the glow of matte textures. There, multi-color suddenly becomes monochrome. Whether a Parisian brasserie or a monolith on top of a hill, the context is the matrix. Archeology, environment, topography, each site constraint is one element of the creative equation. The spirit of the place, the narrative plot of a story that is still to be written, a meeting with a visionary client, the same custom poetry is embodied in all projects, be it public or private.
What’s up
The Saint Laurent Museum, inaugurated in October 2017 in Marrakesh and devoted to the work of the couturier. Monolithic and quiet villas in the heat and light of Morocco and southern France. Stone and glass come together for plays of light. Among the agency’s clients, Francis Ford Coppola, Andre Balazs, Marella Agnelli or the fashion houses Ami, Balmain and Aesop.
Copyright © Portrait – Noël Manalili / Copyright © Museum – Dan Glasser
