BCP Tower by Groupe3 Architectes & Atelier Rachid Andaloussi

Rising at the heart of Casablanca’s emerging Financial City, the BCP Tower by Groupe3 Architectes and Atelier Rachid Andaloussi is conceived as both an emblem of institutional stability and a forward-looking architectural gesture. Designed as the new headquarters for BCP Bank, the tower stands in a rapidly transforming urban context where international ambition, economic growth, and architectural experimentation converge. Rather than competing in the visual noise of symbolic high-rise forms, the project adopts a deliberate strategy of restraint—favoring timelessness, clarity, and civic presence over spectacle. Through its sculpted massing, material expression, and carefully choreographed relationship with public space, the building embodies the bank’s core values of proximity, solidarity, citizenship, and performance while projecting an identity suited to the twenty-first century.

A Monolithic Silhouette Rooted in Place

The tower asserts itself as a totemic figure, a monolith whose serene white presence pays homage to the architectural heritage of Casablanca. Its form is neither ostentatious nor overly expressive; instead, it is controlled and dignified, a sculptural volume that appears carved from a single block. The whiteness of its exterior—echoing the city’s historic “white architecture”—establishes an immediate link between past and future, grounding the project in local identity while elevating it to the scale of global financial architecture.

Positioned perpendicularly to the former airport runway, the building’s orientation is carefully calibrated, with its long north and south façades opening toward views and favorable daylight conditions. The tower rises from a four-level podium that organizes shared, public-facing, and support functions. This base deliberately humanizes the scale of the ensemble, ensuring that—even within a district of towers—the building maintains a pedestrian-friendly presence.

A Public Threshold Between City and Institution

At the core of the design is the creation of a hall-plaza that blurs the boundary between the urban realm and the institutional interior. Located at the foot of the tower, this generous plaza functions as both an extension of Anfa Place and a ceremonial threshold into the headquarters. Serving as a civic living room, the space embodies the bank’s commitment to accessibility and community engagement. It is a welcoming gesture—symbolically and spatially—affirming that the institution exists in service to the public.

Facade Strategies for Climate, Performance, and Identity

One of the most distinctive aspects of the BCP Tower is its façade, designed around orientation, performance, and symbolic expression.

On the north façade, facing the Atlantic, a thin, fully glazed double skin creates a luminous, transparent surface. Motorized kinetic sunshades animate this façade, responding to light conditions and reinforcing a sense of futurity and technological intelligence. Here, the architecture communicates openness, foresight, and the bank’s evolving role in a globalized economy.

The south façade contrasts dramatically—wrapped in a sculpted white concrete moucharabieh. The perforated screen enhances environmental comfort by filtering sunlight and reducing heat gain, while its geometric pattern expands as the tower rises, subtly dematerializing the building toward the sky. These deep-textured surfaces express ecological responsibility and continue a long lineage of regional craft traditions through a contemporary lens.

By comparison, the east and west façades are narrower and more opaque, clad in white fiber-reinforced concrete panels. They function as anchoring elements, grounding the composition with their solidity and material depth. Their quiet, mineral presence reinforces ideas of continuity, resilience, and rootedness—qualities aligned with a historic institution.

Together, these differentiated façades compose a building that is simultaneously stable and dynamic, minimalist yet richly layered.

Vertical Program and Organizational Clarity

Above the podium, nineteen standard office floors rise along a clear central axis, optimizing plan depth and daylight penetration. Two upper levels are reserved for governance functions, enjoying privileged views and enhanced privacy. The spatial organization reflects the institutional hierarchy of the bank while ensuring flexibility, operational clarity, and environmental performance.

Inside, the architectural language shifts from the monolithic exterior to a warm palette featuring timber elements, transparent partitions, and generous daylight. The interior design emphasizes comfort, collaboration, and psychological well-being—qualities essential in contemporary corporate environments.

Gardens in the Sky and Integrative Landscaping

Landscape design is woven throughout the project. Two major suspended gardens punctuate the building: one on the podium level, serving the company restaurant’s outdoor terrace, and another on the upper floors, hidden behind the moucharabieh as a private green oasis. These elevated gardens create moments of calm within the vertical workplace and underscore the project’s commitment to biophilic design.

On the ground, the tower is integrated into a broader landscape strategy that enhances walkability, public life, and the emerging urban character of the Financial City. The overall composition reinforces the idea of a building that is not isolated but deeply interdependent with its neighborhood.

A Timeless Addition to Casablanca’s Urban Identity

The BCP Tower stands as a model for dignified, environmentally responsive high-rise design in North Africa. It avoids extravagant form-making in favor of a calm, confident presence—an icon born not from spectacle, but from clarity of purpose and cultural resonance. Through its interplay of opacity and transparency, mass and lightness, tradition and innovation, the tower represents the next chapter of Casablanca’s architectural evolution: a city that has long balanced modernity with heritage and continues to forge its own future with ambition and elegance.

Photography: Doublespace Photography