CASA COOK EL GOUNA
El Gouna is an isolated resort town, an oasis flowering on the edge of the Red Sea. It’s a place where millennia of Egyptian cultural history and the stark desert stretching inland towards purple hills provides a rich context for a resort town imbued with modernity.
The site for Casa Cook El Gouna, a 100-bed resort hotel, is both on the edge of the town and of the sea, allowing a phenomenal opportunity to segue between the stark beauty of the desert landscape and the comfort, elegance and down to earth nature of a relaxed beach resort.
Inspired by Egyptian temple architecture, we wanted Casa Cook El Gouna to have a rhythm and proportion which made use of the light in the area, which famously has a distinctive clarity about it. Simple, almost brutalist boxes with sharp edged columns and clean lines cast hard geometric shadows. But in the same field of vision the light fall is scattered organically by thin timber lathes, the chaotic shimmer of water reflected on a wall, or the swaying of a cluster of palms in the breeze.
Our goal was to adorn each space with light and shadow in such a way that the experience of it differs depending on the time of day; a wall is honest and plain at one hour, and decorated by indecipherable glyphs of shadow the next.
The design of the resort seeks an uncluttered simplicity – both in terms of simple shapes that the eye understands and finds restful, and in uncomplicated spaces designed to allow guests’ thoughts to drift, to find shelter in the heat of the day, to take in the shimmer of the sea to the east and the haze of the desert inland.
To the west of El Gouna, the horizon is jagged with the relief of the Red Sea Mountains. These, formed out of granite, porphyry and breccia, are shades of deep red and ochre in the morning, fading to purple shadow in the late afternoon haze as the sun sets behind them. At their feet, stretching towards El Gouna, is a moonscape of jagged rock, tufts of muted grass and fine, low-slung dunes. These earthy colours have a stark, arid beauty, set beneath a sky which dazzles orange over dappled wisps of cloud at sunset. Taken all together, the mountains, the desert and the sky gave us a rich palette to draw from as we considered the forms and materials for Casa Cook El Gouna.
We believe in respect for place, and wanted to celebrate these colours, bringing them inside to guests by using materials that are tactile and natural. Concrete, unpainted plaster, timber. Furnishings of linen, hammered brass, rattan. The kinds of materials that make one want to drag one’s fingertips over them. The spirit of the desert and the hills, both within and without, infuses the open flow of indoor and outdoor spaces, which defines the secluded and restful rooms.
Breezy communal spaces, like the beach club, pool area and restaurant, are designed to encourage guests to lounge in the sunshine, enjoy a drawn-out meal deep into the evening and socialise with ease. The resort spa juxtaposes an ancient hammam with modern steam rooms, saunas and plunge pools. The resort opens out onto the beach – a desert of a different kind – with its kiteboarding hub and, beyond it, azure waters.
In all of these spaces – public and private, indoor and outside – we sought a contemporary simplicity and a quiet ease – key elements of the Casa Cook design ethos.
An oasis within an oasis.
