Coursing

A single horizontal lift of pisé construction — the volume of wall built within one position of the formwork before the shutter is raised. Course height in southern Moroccan pisé typically ranges from 60 to 90 cm and varies with formwork dimensions, the strength of the team, and regional convention. Vertical joints between adjacent courses are normally staggered for shear continuity. The visible record of the courses on a finished wall, sometimes emphasised by slight differences in colour where successive borrow pits supplied different soils, is the architectural fingerprint of the construction sequence and is often used by conservators to read the build history of a wall.