Senegal – SPANTONE

Innovation Center — Dakar, Senegal

A contemporary innovation center in Dakar, Senegal, where a patterned brick facade and a central reflecting pool create an institution designed as much for inspiration as for work.

The Innovation Center in Dakar, Senegal is built on the conviction that the physical environment shapes the quality of the ideas produced within it. The design brings together research, collaboration, and public engagement in a building that is open, generous, and rooted in its West African context.

The ground floor layout is organised around a central reflecting pool and courtyard — a calm, contemplative space that gives every part of the building a view of water and sky. Around this core, the plan unfolds into a lobby and reception area, meeting rooms, office and lab spaces, and flexible common areas suited to the varied rhythms of innovation work. The relationship between indoor and outdoor is seamless throughout, with covered walkways and shaded thresholds ensuring the courtyard is usable across all seasons.

The facade uses an enlarged brick module in a patterned arrangement that references local craft traditions while performing a genuine environmental function — filtering direct sunlight, encouraging cross-ventilation, and giving the building a texture that changes through the day as the light moves across it. This is a building that invests in its setting and expects its setting to invest back.

Architectural Renders

Ocean-Side Cigar Lounge & Humidor — Dakar, Senegal

An intimate ocean-side cigar lounge and humidor in Dakar — a boutique hospitality project where patterned brick, a private pool, and careful climate control combine to create a singular sensory experience.

A cigar lounge makes particular demands on architecture: it requires precise humidity control, excellent natural ventilation, a sense of privacy and enclosure, and an atmosphere that rewards slow, unhurried occupation. This ocean-side lounge and humidor in Dakar, Senegal answers all of those demands with a design that is elegant, purposeful, and beautifully situated.

The building uses the same patterned brick facade system seen in the broader Dakar portfolio — a perforated masonry screen that filters ocean breezes while maintaining the internal humidity conditions essential for a quality humidor. The courtyard and pool extend outward from the main lounge volume, giving guests a private outdoor space that captures sea views and the Dakar coastal light without fully exposing them to the elements.

The ground floor site layout organises the program efficiently: the lounge and humidor occupy the primary volume, with service and storage tucked to the rear. Structural details document the stilt-to-floor beam connections and enlarged brick module assembly — the same robust system that ensures long-term performance in a coastal salt-air environment.

Architectural Renders

Eco-Modular Retreat — Dakar, Senegal

A modular eco-retreat in Dakar, Senegal, where patterned brick facades and palm-lined courtyards create a series of private units that feel both contemporary and deeply rooted in their West African context.

The Eco-Modular Retreat in Dakar, Senegal is designed around a deceptively simple idea: that a retreat should feel like a community, not a compound. Multiple modular units are arranged around a shared central courtyard that contains a pool, mature palm plantings, and integrated rock fill areas — creating a landscaped heart to the development that every unit relates to and benefits from.

Each unit’s facade uses a patterned brick module that references traditional West African screens and lattice work, allowing light and air to move through while maintaining visual privacy. The brick pattern is not merely decorative — it is structural and functional, calibrated at the module level to achieve the right balance of openness and enclosure. Wood composite panels appear at deck surfaces, doors, and louvered elements, adding warmth to what might otherwise be a purely masonry composition.

The west elevation reads as a long, layered horizontal — a series of slightly staggered bays unified by a consistent roofline. A section through the pool and courtyard reveals the relationship between the units and the shared outdoor space, showing how the buildings frame, shelter, and overlook the communal area without dominating it.

Architectural Renders

Beachside Bar & Pergola — Dakar, Senegal

A relaxed beachside bar and pergola on the coast of Dakar — a hospitality structure built for the open air, with a timber canopy, ocean views, and the kind of design that makes every visit feel unhurried.

Some buildings are about enclosure. This one is about the opposite. The beachside bar and pergola in Dakar, Senegal is designed to dissolve the boundary between shelter and open sky, using a timber pergola structure to provide shade without walls — letting the breeze, the light, and the proximity of the ocean do the rest of the work.

The overall site plan shows the bar set within a larger landscaped area, with outdoor seating zones arranged around a circular feature that anchors the space and draws people in. The bar itself is long and well-stocked, with a service bar running behind the counter and a service hatch system that allows the kitchen to supply the space efficiently without disrupting the flow of service.

The pergola construction is fully documented: posts rise from concrete pad footings, a beam-and-rafter system spans between them, and detailed joinery connections are shown at each intersection. Sliding menu panels, serving hatches, and blue-toned upholstered seating complete the picture — a well-resolved commercial hospitality design that would be as comfortable at opening as it is after a decade of use.

Architectural Renders

Circular Earth Shelter with Rooftop Garden — Dakar, Senegal

An organic, circular-plan earth shelter in Dakar, Senegal, crowned with a productive green roof — a building that spirals inward like a living thing and gives back to the sky what it takes from the ground.

There are buildings that feel designed, and there are buildings that feel grown. This circular earth shelter in Dakar, Senegal, belongs to the second category. Its plan is radial and organic — a series of curved walls that spiral inward around a central core, creating rooms that flow into one another rather than sitting in a conventional grid.

The exterior walls use a combination of adobe clay, earth plaster, and rammed earth, chosen for their thermal performance, local availability, and the warm, textured surfaces they produce. The building is single-storey at its perimeter and rises toward its centre, culminating in a rooftop green roof assembly that supports planting, manages rainwater, and softens the building’s presence in the landscape.

Inside, the circular layout gives every room a curved wall — making spaces feel sheltered and particular rather than generic. The green roof assembly is fully detailed in the drawings, including its drainage layer, growing medium, and planting specification. This is a building that takes from the earth in its materials and gives back to it through its rooftop — a small, complete ecological cycle in built form.

Architectural Renders

Residential Project No. 14 — Rammed Earth, Dakar, Senegal

A rammed earth residential design for Dakar, Senegal, adapted to meet US building code requirements — proving that vernacular construction techniques can hold their own within modern regulatory frameworks.

Residential Project No. 14 is a thoughtful exercise in bridging two worlds: the ancient tradition of rammed earth construction and the requirements of contemporary US building codes. Sited in Dakar, Senegal, the design demonstrates that these two frameworks are not at odds — they simply require careful, deliberate detailing.

The ground floor accommodates a main living and conference area alongside kitchen and bathroom facilities, arranged in a clear, functional plan. A loft level rises above, offering a private sleeping zone that takes advantage of the building’s generous ceiling height. Roof slope and drainage are code-compliant throughout.

Construction detailing addresses rammed earth-specific concerns: moisture protection at the base, insulation integration within the wall section, and structural reinforcement where required by code. The result is a home that reads as genuinely local — warm, textured, and climatically responsive — while meeting the rigorous standards expected of any contemporary building project.

Architectural Renders

Ecological Housing Project — Dakar, Senegal

A single-story ecological home in Dakar, Senegal, built using traditional rammed earth (terre pisé) construction — blending climate-sensitive design with the textures and warmth of natural materials.

Rooted in the landscape of Dakar, Senegal, this ecological housing project embraces one of the world’s oldest building traditions: terre pisé, or rammed earth construction. The design pairs the thermal mass and natural character of compacted earth walls with a thoughtfully organised single-story floor plan, creating a home that stays cool in the heat without relying on mechanical systems.

The layout centres around a generous living room (salon) and private bedroom (chambre), with a kitchen and utility spaces arranged for ease of daily life. Covered terraces extend the living areas outdoors, blurring the line between interior comfort and the open air. A pool area anchors the rear of the site, creating a private retreat shaded by the building’s own form.

Structurally, the walls combine stabilised rammed earth panels with thermal insulation detailing, ensuring both durability and energy performance. The project demonstrates that traditional materials — when applied with care and technical precision — can produce homes that are beautiful, practical, and deeply connected to their place.