Turning a riad courtyard into a wellness bay

Why the building is already on your side

Thick pisé or brick walls hold temperature. Courtyards give ventilation and daylight without windows onto the street. Drains already run to a central point. Floors are stone or bejmat over a solid base. Almost everything a wet room needs, a riad has had for two hundred years.

What it does not have is a straight run for a duct, a spare electrical capacity, or any tolerance for guesswork about what is inside a wall. We open up and look before we draw.

Access is the budget line nobody expects

Nothing arrives by vehicle. Panels, stone, sand and plant come in by handcart through alleys and, in the last stretch, on shoulders. We size everything to the narrowest point on the route and we price the labour honestly as its own line rather than hiding it in the material cost.

It also sets the schedule: deliveries happen early, before the alleys fill, and the site has to be swept every evening because it is somebody's street.

Working in a protected medina

Marrakech and Fès medinas are protected, and external alterations are constrained. Internally there is far more freedom, but a new flue or an external unit on a facade is a conversation with the authorities, not a decision. We design plant to sit internally or on the roof set back from the parapet where it cannot be seen from the alley.

In short

• Thick walls, courtyard ventilation and existing drainage already work for you
• Everything arrives by handcart and shoulder — priced as its own line
• Plant sited internally or set back on the roof, out of sight from the alley
• We open up and look inside walls before drawing anything