By Laura Hunt Miller
For many Western travelers, the name “Morocco” conjures images of unfamiliar customs, labyrinthine cities, and ancient trade routes led by caravans of camels across the Sahara. But Morocco has not simply been a crossroads of Mediterranean, African, and Islamic history. It helped shape that history.
Long before Christianity or Islam reached North Africa, its Indigenous peoples established communities and kingdoms along the edge of the desert. Romans came to farm and trade, Islamic scholars established some of the world’s earliest centers of higher learning, and powerful Moroccan dynasties extended their influence into Spain and Portugal.
Centuries later, Morocco became one of the first nations to recognize the independence of a young United States. In 1777, Sultan Mohammed III opened Moroccan ports to American ships, and in 1786, the two nations formalized their relationship with the Moroccan-American Treaty of Peace and Friendship.
Even as European powers competed for influence, dividing the country at one point between French and Spanish colonial rule in 1912, Morocco retained its identity shaped by centuries of exchange. It regained its independence in 1956, carrying forward architectural and artistic traditions that survived generations of political upheaval.
It was this remarkable convergence of influences that first drew Louisiana Tech Interior Design Professor Marla Emory to southern Spain and Morocco, with Louisiana-based producer Jamison Shults in 2025. Captivated by the people, architecture, and living craft traditions, Emory returned a year later with a group of Louisiana Tech School of Design students and professors to explore the region’s history and culture further.
Their journey began in Spain, where the legacy of old Moroccan dynasties can still be seen across the Iberian Peninsula. Traveling through Barcelona, Madrid, and Granada, the students explored the influences of Christian, Jewish, and Muslim civilizations on the local art and built environment before crossing the Strait of Gibraltar into North Africa. Eventually, their travels brought them to Fez. Yes, that fez, the little red hat with the tassel, whose name is associated with the Moroccan city’s historic hat-making and dyeing traditions.
Fez’s ancient medina, designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1981, remains an extraordinary living network of narrow streets, markets, religious institutions, and traditional residences. In many places, the streets are too narrow for cars, so modern goods make their way through the city by handcart or pack animal, just as they did centuries ago. For Emory, whose work involves understanding how buildings function as well as how they look, the trip offered an opportunity to explore architecture and design through more than their surviving remnants. The students could see firsthand the people and skills that continue to bring these traditions to life.
Among the most recognizable features of traditional Moroccan architecture, although you may not recognize the name, is zellige, the intricate geometric tilework that adorns many courtyards, fountains, walls, and floors. The elaborate patterns can appear almost impossibly precise, with hundreds or even thousands of individual pieces fitting together to create extraordinarily complex arrangements.
Traditional zellige mosaics are made by hand. Artisans begin with glazed ceramic tiles, cutting and shaping each piece by hand with specialized tools. The pieces are then arranged into elaborate patterns, often assembled like a face-down puzzle before being transferred and secured into larger panels. The finished work requires an understanding of geometry, proportion, materials, and construction techniques developed and refined over generations. Today, artisans continue producing zellige for both historic restoration and contemporary buildings.
For students accustomed to studying architectural history through photographs, drawings, and visits to historic sites, encountering the living traditions that created these buildings offers an opportunity to see not only what earlier generations created, but how they created it. And perhaps more importantly, how we can continue to care for such places.
While Emory was with her students in Morocco, Shults, inspired by their trip to the region, began writing the pilot for a documentary series that would introduce these traditions to audiences back home. The project became Riad Revival, a documentary currently in development that combines travel, history, architecture, and hands-on restoration. Rather than hyper-focusing on the dramatic before-and-after transformations familiar to renovation tv, the series will explore the people, traditions, and technical knowledge behind the work.
A riad is a traditional Moroccan residence organized around an interior courtyard or garden, an architectural concept that has appeared in cultures around the world for thousands of years. From the atrium houses of ancient Rome to traditional Chinese courtyard homes, civilizations separated by enormous distances have recognized the advantages of bringing the outdoors into the center of a residence.
In Morocco, the concept evolved into homes that often present modest, relatively private exteriors to the street, opening inward to gorgeous courtyards filled with light, greenery, and often the gentle sound of water from a central fountain as well. Beyond their beauty, these spaces provide natural ventilation, shade, and privacy in dense urban conditions where these things may otherwise be scarce.
Through their travels, the team connected with a French-Moroccan couple who had recently purchased a historic riad in the ancient medina of Fez. The property is believed to have once been a residence of Sultan Moulay Abd-el-Hafid, who signed the Treaty of Fez, which established the French Protectorate and marked a turning point in the country’s political history.
The couple plans to restore the property and transform it into a luxury hospitality destination, preserving its historic character while giving the building a new purpose. Emory will contribute her expertise to the design of the interior courtyard and rooftop spaces, working alongside Moroccan professionals and craftspeople whose knowledge of traditional materials and techniques will be essential to the project. And while the project centers on a centuries-old home a world away from ours, the questions it raises are hardly unique to Morocco.
Across the world, communities face similar challenges as historic buildings age, traditional materials become harder to source, and the specialized knowledge required to maintain them grows increasingly rare. We may know what an old building looked like, even possess detailed drawings of its construction, but that doesn’t mean we still know how to build or properly repair it. In Louisiana, where historic buildings have endured generations of changing materials, construction practices, and environmental conditions, it is a familiar dilemma.
Good restoration then, should be a conversation between the past and the present, finding ways to honor traditional skills while accommodating contemporary needs. And while we may not be able to preserve every historic building in our communities, understanding how they were made helps us appreciate and care for the places that have defined us.
The team is currently raising funds to support an initial research and filming trip to Morocco this December. Readers can go to seedandspark.com/fund/riad-
Through Riad Revival, audiences will be able to join this engaging conversation about what makes a remarkable home, and the expertise required to preserve one. Because no matter where we live, the real wonder of historic architecture isn’t only in what is left standing, but what we can learn from it and how we sustain that knowledge for future generations.
