The site speaks first
Before a single line, we sit on the plot at three times of day and watch the shadow. That sketch outlasts every render.
The Atelier
A small studio that works at the speed of drying mud.
We are architects, a landscape designer and two makers who would rather build one careful house than ten quick ones.
Atelier Nakhla began in a rented mud room in Al-Bujairi in 2014, a hundred metres from the walls of At-Turaif. We spent the first year measuring old houses rather than designing new ones — learning how a Najdi wall keeps its cool, where the triangular openings sit, and why the courtyard is never quite in the centre.
Everything since has been an argument between that fabric and the way people live now — a kitchen that opens to the majlis, a car that needs shade, a daughter who wants a window. We keep the argument on the drawings, so the building can stay calm.
How we practise
Draw it, then build it
We detail to the joint. A door reveal, a drain fall, a palm-wood ceiling — nothing is left to be improvised on site.
Age is not a defect
Lime cracks, mud settles, palm-wood silvers. We design for the patina rather than fighting it with sealant.
Small on purpose
We take a handful of projects a year. The principal who sketched your house is the one who signs off its plaster.
The principals
NF
Nora Al-Fahad
Principal Architect · Founder
SR
Sultan Al-Rasheed
Architecture · Partner
MB
Maryam Basyouni
Courtyards & Landscape
FD
Faisal Al-Dawsari
Heritage & Detailing