A pity this house has crumbled down but now it nicely demonstrates the style by which most houses in the Marrakech Old Town were built: A courtyard at the centre of surrounding galleries of rooms which also make the outside room and connecting wall with similar houses, usually on three sides. The upper terrace, or roof garden, overlooks and is overlooked by the houses are all around. The courtyard is open to the sky, or at best has a canopy covering it, and allows cool air to circulate. Windows to the outside are few in the outside wall and the front door of heavy wood is low and surprisingly narrow. Access to the house, and indeed its row of houses, is through very narrow passage ways and precludes all motor vehicles except the ubiquitous motorcycles and mopeds. The hotel I stayed in while on a break in Marrakech was just such a house. Outside nondescript but inside of sumptuous luxury, and to one side of the courtyard a deep dipping pool in which to cool off from a long day out in the sun.

Marrakech or Marrakesh - take your pick - is also know as the Red City due to the deep pink mud its houses are made from.

More information can be had from

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marakesh

By the way, I am unable to say with certainty exactly where the photographs were taken in the Old Town. If anyone can send me the map coordinates I will be much obliged.