College Life and Moroccan Architecture

Al-Akhawayn Univeristy is our "home base" for the next five weeks (and has been for the last week). It is nestled in the Atlas mountain and is nicknamed "little Siwtzerland" among locals because of its dominantly Swiss-French architecture. It was originally built as a French military base, and they chose this location because it is much more mild than the low-lying Medeterranian surrounds. It is very different from the architecture that you see in the rest of the country.
Traditional Moroccan architecture is like what you see in the Medinas like Marakesh and Fez. When the cities were originally constructed, they had walls (ramparts) built around them. They were a mixture of limestone and concrete. Homes were built in the same style, with tile zelijj and mosaic designs on the floors and walls to decorate them, and cedar woodwork in the form of beautifully carved doors, screens and ceilings that served to keep the warmth in in winter time. All of the materials they put in to the architecture of the region serve a purpose. The limestone/cement mixture keeps the homes very cool in the hot months, and the wooden ceiling keep the warmth in in the cool months, the carved doors and zelijj make them some of the most beautiful buildings I've ever seen. Carved screens and holes in the walls let in fresh air, so that air is always circulating in Moroccan homes.
In middle class and upper class homes, there is usually a courtyard with a fountain or trees, and sometimes both. It is open at the top to create a solarioum, with natural light sneaking into the rooms situated around the main courtyard (although some Moroccans have taken to putting up screens so that the sparrows that nest in the holes in the walls of the ancient cities don't take over their homes). Poorer familes wouldn't enjoy the sprawling rooms that the middle and upper classes enjoy, they live in more humble housing, often with one family occupying a room, five families in one home.
So needless to say at the university, being a "Modern" campus means sacrificing all that beautiful custom architecture and putting students up in sterile French-Swiss accomodations.
After five days stuck on a totally Americanized Campus, eating bootleg American food sitting in four hour lectures here and there, I was screaming inside. I was really just dying to get out and experience some real Moroccan culture.