After a hiatus, we are back! So where have we been since NOV 2018? Well, we had our first child, then a second. I finished a master’s degree then an MBA and Rachel is about to start grad school. We have also moved from the Midwest to Korea and back and bunkered down during COVID like everybody else. During this time my research, designs, and aspirations for a Riad style house have not abated. A key theme that has emerged during my design sessions is leveling. The Riad is about privacy and inward-looking comfort. The raw structures in Morocco or other dense city areas are not suitable for American style land plots, unless you buy an existing structure in a mixed-use zoned area. The use of various levels creates a sense of privacy while also limiting land usage. A raised outdoor garden area that partially resides over the garage that is itself partially built into a hill creates a nice vista while minimizing direct external observation. 

I want to briefly talk about external observation before I move on to other thoughts as this has also taken up some research time. I personally don’t like the idea of main rooms (and god forbid bedrooms) directly accessible/viewable from the street. A desire for privacy is one factor, but a need for security is another. A 2-meter elevation makes observation and unwelcome ingress quite difficult. Other elevation tools such as raised garden beds, drop offs, and tree mounds also canalize vehicle/equipment access along desired paths. Further use of landscaping also directs foot traffic to more ideal areas. The art of this process is to design a castle that doesn’t look like a castle (or perhaps a redoubt). In this effort I am spending time researching trace italienne(star fortress) designs in terms of elevations and line of sight. 

So, where I am today in design? Still at the conceptual drawing board of course. I am 10 years away from the earliest build window, but I want to enter that window with a host of options for different climates, financial situations, and family situations. A multi-family estate with 2+ funding streams would command more space that a 2-person petite riad built inside an old shoe store in a downtown area. I will close with some distilled considerations for various design concepts: 

• Building on multiple levels (into a hill etc.) will require significant engineering support and certifications, which in turn will swell the budget. Rooms below the surface will also require special attention for moisture control and limit the parts of the country you could build in. 

• Humidity is the bane of courtyards – open archways perpendicular to normal wind direction alleviates this problem for open air courtyards. This basically turns 2 sides of a courtyard in loggias. Consider Generalife in Spain and look at the side gardens – this isn’t a total negative, but it needs other design supports to pull off. Open 1^st floor loggias with rooms above or the use of elevations are the normal ways I have approached this problem. 

• Segmentation done well creates cognitive floor space. Consider Casa de Pilatos or Las Dueñas. They each segment sections of the property with transitions accomplished either through gateways or transition rooms. This makes the property seem more expansive as you are quickly ‘transported’ from one experience to another. 

• Non-Courtyard Hallways are the bane of floorspace. Outside the riad courtyard area where the 2^nd level hallways/walkways are part of the design, the connection of other segments/portions creates a hallway conundrum. Likewise, a first-floor branch along the side requires either a central axis hallway (with rooms on each side and a terminal end. Or a hallway that faces the courtyard or exterior.  I am tempted to pull a ‘Versailles’ and just have rooms connect into each other without hallways in certain areas. 

In the next post I will provide snapshots of various designs and talk the general concepts I was trying to get after. I am still using excel as my scratch pad since it is easy, but I do plan to move into actual design software in a few years. 

Mike