Wast ed-Dar

The central courtyard of a Moroccan house — literally "the middle of the house" — onto which the principal rooms open and through which much of the household's daily life is organised. In the southern kasbah the wast ed-dar is typically a rectangular open-air court at first-floor level, around which the reception rooms and family quarters are arranged, with kitchens and stables disposed at ground level. The courtyard provides daylight and ventilation to deep-plan rooms; it also negotiates the cultural separation of public and private space that underlies the inward-facing organisation of Maghrebi domestic architecture.