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Badie Architects imagines Esca Playa restaurant as a continuous concrete shell in a desert

Egypt Architecture News - Jan 16, 2026 - 05:24 549 views

Cairo-based architecture studio Badie Architects has imagined a restaurant as a continuous organism in the middle of a desert in Playa, North Coast, Egypt.

Named Esca Playa, the 950-square-metre restaurant is a coastal morphology, a structure molded by wind, light, and tide, which reflects how the structural is developed.

In a landscape where space, material, and nature are in constant conversation, surfaces erode into form and structure flows with the environment.

Badie Architects imagines Esca Playa restaurant as a continuous concrete shell in a desert

The architecture, which is situated right on the coast, uses catenary geometry and biomorphic principles as operational instruments rather than aesthetic references to manage the meeting point between land and sea.

Badie Architects imagines Esca Playa restaurant as a continuous concrete shell in a desert

The project converts natural forces into tectonic expression and is based on the organic logic of sedimentary formations and seashells. Light, ventilation, and circulation are mediated by regulated voids carved into its monolithic envelope, which is cast as a continuous shell with a stratified texture.

Badie Architects imagines Esca Playa restaurant as a continuous concrete shell in a desert

Gradients of enclosure, where carved recesses, overhangs, and open planes produce a sequence that feels both excavated and accreted, give rise to the spatial organization. This morphology prioritizes growth and naturality over forced composition.

Badie Architects imagines Esca Playa restaurant as a continuous concrete shell in a desert

The architecture demonstrates flexibility. Porous boundaries lessen the distinction between inner and exterior, while structural elements thicken and thin in response to environmental stresses. Shadow and exposure interact dynamically throughout the day as a result of light refracting across sloping surfaces.

Badie Architects imagines Esca Playa restaurant as a continuous concrete shell in a desert

Esca Playa is envisioned as an inhabited landform that is dynamic, continuous, and inextricably linked to its coastal setting rather than as a static structure. As material, climate, and geometry join together to form a single architectural organism, it transforms into a spatial ecosystem shaped by elemental forces.

Badie Architects imagines Esca Playa restaurant as a continuous concrete shell in a desert