CAS Studio

In Morocco, light shapes space.

Not to reveal everything at once, but to reveal a place slowly. Nothing is too obvious.

The carved Amazigh doors are not decoration. They were designed to protect and celebrate a family's wealth, expressing meaning through symbol and craft.

The richness lies in detail, proportion and hierarchy, expressed through geometry, texture, colour and space.

These travels bring us back to the universal principles of light, material, proportion and craft.

Photos by :

1- Saadian Tombs: Courtyard
2- Saadian Tombs: Passage and Earth Walls
3- Saadian Tombs: Earthen Construction
4- Palais Bahia: Restoration Works
5- Marrakech Medina: Earthen City Gate
6- Palais Bahia: Painted Wooden Ceiling
7- Marrakech Riad: Carved Cedar Door

👉🏻 Full article: www.cas-at.com/journal

Earth walls. Timber. Natural light.
Architecture rooted in place and climate.

Project Outeiro, Alcácer do Sal.

Photo by

Process & backstage from Project Outeiro.

Every project holds smaller ones within.

A 240 kg fireplace, designed not as decoration but as a structural object.
Steel, balance and heat carefully considered, in dialogue between craft, art and architecture.

Designed by CAS Studio.
Built by metalsmith Artur Camponês.

Photos by

Field Notes I – Great Zimbabwe

Nine hours on the road from Manica, where we were based.
Red msasa trees. Baobabs. Border dust and a golden sunset.

And then: stone.

Granite blocks shaped and laid without mortar.
Subtle inward batter. Curvilinear walls rising with structural clarity.

Not primitive, just intelligence in material. Built over 700 years ago.

Around it, wattle and daub huts.
Earth and timber. Flexibility and resilience.

Permanence in stone. Adaptability in earth.
A building culture shaped by time and territory.

📸 Photos by :⁠
1 – Baobab route to Great Zimbabwe⁠
2 – Great Zimbabwe aerial enclosure⁠
3 – Great Zimbabwe stone passage⁠
4 – Great Zimbabwe curved stone wall⁠
5 – Great Zimbabwe curvilinear dry stone ⁠
6 – Great Zimbabwe, vernacular houses⁠
7 – Great Zimbabwe, wattle and daub ⁠
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👉🏻 Full article at

journal - CAS Studio Our journal Our new projects, workshops and blog posts. Field Notes I – Great Zimbabwe Feb 25, 2026Posts Field Notes, Vernacular Architecture in Africa Feb 5, 2026Posts Nautilus Shell Lamp Nov 26, 2025Posts Architecture that Reveals a Place Nov 6, 2025Posts For Climate and Craft Oct 22, 2025Posts ...

Field Notes, Vernacular Architecture in Africa.

CAS Studio was forged in 2012, in Manica, Mozambique, through long field based investigation across Southern and Eastern Africa.

From the stone structures of Great Zimbabwe to earthen and reed buildings along the Swahili coast, passing through Manica and Gorongosa, we learned architecture by being on site.

Working with earth, material and craft shaped the way we design today.

📷 Photos by :
1- Bamboo lattice and earth infill, Pemba, Mozambique
2- Detail of bamboo latice and earth wall, Pemba, Mozambique
3- Dwelling made of bamboo latice and earth, Pemba, Mozambique
4- Adobe houses and courtyard, Manica, Mozambique

👉🏻 Full article at www.cas-at.com/journal

Light Shaped by Nature

The ocean covers most of our planet.
It regulates climate. When it changes, everything changes.
It’s warming and becoming more acid.
Shells and corals are struggling.

Spending time in the ocean made it real.
The sea stopped being a postcard and became a teacher.

This lamp started there: a nautilus-inspired form.
Printed in biobased PLA, made locally, one at a time.
Each piece unique. No stock, no waste.

First piece of the series.

(Nautilus Lamp, by CAS Studio)

Architecture that reveals the place.

What drives and inspire us is simple:
Climate. Material. Craft. Context.

Álvaro Siza’s Leça Tide Pool (1966) and Boa Nova Tea House (1963) show this principle clearly.

There, the building does not try to stand above nature. It responds to it.

The rocks, the wind and the horizon were there first.

Architecture isn’t about imposing form.
It’s about working with what already exists and revealing the place through the building.

📷:
1 – Boa Nova Tea House, Jeremy Weate
(CC BY-SA 2.0)
2 – Boa Nova Tea House, João Morgado
(CC BY-SA 4.0)
3 – Boa Nova Tea House, LonEMedia
(CC BY-SA 3.0)

👉🏻 Full article at www.cas-at.com/journal

Architecture that reveals the place.

What drives and inspire us:
Climate. Material. Craft. Context.

Álvaro Siza’s Leça Tide Pool (1966) and Boa Nova Tea House (1963) show this principle clearly.
There, the building does not try to stand above nature.

It responds to it because the rocks were there first.
The wind and the horizon were there first.

Architecture isn’t about imposing form.
It’s about working with what already exists and revealing the place through the building.

A building is more than a drawing.
It listens to place, to light, wind, and sun.
Built by hand, guided by precision.
An organism, not a machine.

(Wooden Tiny House, Project Outeiro, Phase 2)

👉🏻Full article at www.cas-at.com/journal

Smart Homes with Living Materials.

Earth, cork, wood, stone: they are not inert, but alive.

They breathe, adapt, and balance the environment.

Technology should not dominate, but translate. In this way, sensors and electronic systems are mediators between human needs and material intelligence.

A house is not a machine but an organism: breathable, adaptive, regenerative.

Innovation begins with matter in dialogue with nature, not with circuits.

(📷 Schist house renovation in Arouca, w/ bio-based materials, shading system, openings to courtyard for cross-ventilation, rainwater recovery system)

👉🏻Full article at www.cas-at.com/journal