Moroccan riad been bought by foreigners. This foreign interest has brought new challenges but the investment has helped with the restoration of the UNESCO site and has helped revive many of the handcrafts and artisan trades that were gradually being lost before this trend. Many of the restored riads in the districts of Mouassine and Lakssour offer the finest examples of restoration as historically these areas contained many of the grand palaces from Marrakech's Saadian period. Moroccan riad A riad () is a type of traditional Moroccan house or palace with an interior garden or courtyard. The word riad originates from the
Atrium (architecture) incorporating an atrium is that it typically creates unused vertical space which could otherwise be occupied by additional floors. In a "domus", a large house in Ancient Roman architecture, the "atrium" was the open central court with enclosed rooms on all sides. In the middle of the atrium was the "impluvium", a shallow pool sunken into the floor to catch rainwater from the roof. Some surviving examples are beautifully decorated. The opening in the ceiling above the pool ("compluvium") called for some means of support for the roof, and it is here where one differentiates between five different styles of