Moroccan architecture for building standards which directly affected the architecture at that time, as follows: The building regulations maintained the country's preexisting architectural features and balanced the rapid urbanization. The Riad also known as Dar is the Moroccan traditional house, which normally has two or more storeys around a courtyard. Villas are larger stand-alone housing in the urbanized area which do not need to follow traditional architectural style. Arches, most often the horseshoe arch are used in almost every aspect of Moroccan housing whether it is doors, entrances, windows or niches. Domes are often integrated with altars or commemorative monuments as well
Courtyard house a moat. Courtyard houses of this type occupy an intermediate position between a castle or fortress, where defence is the primary design consideration, and more modern plans in which defence is not a consideration at all. In England the courtyard house was a popular design for large houses in the sixteenth century, after noblemen had stopped building themselves castles, but before thoughts of defence were altogether forgotten in the planning of country houses. The courtyard house makes its first appearance ca. 6400–6000 BC (calibrated), in the Neolithic Yarmukian site at Sha'ar HaGolan, in the central Jordan Valley, on the northern