Cabins on rooftops and in walled gardens

The roof question, answered before anything else

A four-person cabin is light; the water in a plunge tub next to it is not. Before we quote anything for a roof we want to know the structure — traditional riad roofs on timber joists and reed are a different conversation from a modern concrete slab, and in the medina the answer is often that the cabin is fine and the plunge goes downstairs.

We set cabins on galvanised steel feet that spread the load and lift the timber clear of standing water, and we keep the load path over walls rather than mid-span wherever the structure allows.

Sun, wind and the two climates

Inland — Marrakech, Fès, the Haouz plain — the enemy is sun. Cladding on the west face bleaches and dries out, so we specify charred timber or accept that pale timber will need re-oiling. On the Atlantic — Essaouira, Agadir, Taghazout, Dakhla — the enemy is salt-laden wind, so every fixing is stainless and the rainscreen cavity is deeper.

The same cabin built for both places is wrong in one of them. We build them differently and the quote says why.

Getting it up there

In the medina, panels go by handcart through alleys and up a staircase built for people, not for four-metre boards. We size the panels to the narrowest point on the route, which we photograph on the site visit. Outside the walls, a truck and a hoist do in an hour what takes a day inside them.

In short

• Roof structure checked before we quote — riad roofs and concrete slabs are not the same
• Charred timber inland against the sun; stainless fixings and a deeper cavity on the coast
• Panels sized to the narrowest point of the access route, photographed on the visit
• Steel feet spread the load and keep timber clear of standing water