Unveiling the structure of the Marrakech Medina: Architecture History as a precedent for Contemporary Architectural Design

Abstract

The population increase that occurred in North African and Middle-Eastern cities, has led to an uncontrolled urban growth that produced urban environments lacking the spatial richness from their historical vernacular towns. In order to alert and to change this context this paper illustrates work in progress for a design project at the city of Marrakech in Morocco. It describes from a historical and analytical point of view, research carried out at the Zaouiat Lakhdar quarter of the Marrakech Medina. The goal is to create the basis for a computational tool that could capture spatial features of the existing architectonic fabric and apply them at contemporary architectural scenarios. The methodology used is explained from the initial historical analysis and fieldwork realized in situ to the identification of social, religious and geometric set of laws and its codification into two different types of generative rules. These were than applied either at the urban level, or at the domestic level. At the urban scale the system generates options for new urban neighborhood layouts, and at the domestic level, proposes different housing typologies taking in consideration architectural precedents. Results from a class will be showed. The ultimate objective of this project is to illustrate how fruitful can be the interdisciplinary dialogue between history, culture, computation and architecture. It outcome is proved as a dynamic design process able to infer on the organization of a Design Studio, and in the formalization of a computational design methodology that contributes with architectural solutions to the building of the local environment.