Location: Sfax, Tunisia
In March 2011, Marie-Ikram Bouhlel was invited to speak at ISAM in Sfax, as part of a seminar dedicated to the built environment.
Titled “This Light That Fascinates Us,” the lecture begins with a simple observation: long before light is calculated, regulated, or drawn, it is felt. It acts on us without instructions, shaping our relationship to space, time, and sometimes to ourselves.
Through architectural and urban situations, the talk invites a shift in perspective. Light is not approached as an addition to space, but as a condition of its existence. An immaterial substance that precedes form, reveals use, and questions the responsibility of designers toward what is seen, perceived, yet rarely named.
Addressed to students, the lecture opens a path: learning to observe light before attempting to control it, accepting that it partly escapes us, and allowing this uncertainty to become a driving force in the design process.