Riad L' Atelier

Riad L'Atelier is a design-focused boutique property in the Medina of Marrakech, the riad format here organized around a courtyard pool that functions as the visual and spatial centre of the house. The contemporary design approach works with the traditional architecture of the building as a substrate rather than a constraint, the clean lines and restrained palette of the interiors creating a calibrated contrast with the carved and decorated surfaces that the riad structure provides as a given. A rooftop terrace looks out across the Medina roofscape. Yoga classes are available within the property. The on-site restaurant and bar serve guests within an interior that maintains the design register of the rest of the house, the connection between the spaces coherent rather than segmented. An outdoor fireplace extends the usability of the garden and terrace areas into the cooler months, a practical consideration that the Marrakech winter makes relevant and that the barefoot luxury aesthetic of the property makes appropriate. Riad L'Atelier is the kind of place that attracts guests for whom the quality of a place's visual decisions matters as much as its list of amenities, and whose courtyard pool and design sensibility offer exactly the level of considered retreat that the boutique Medina riad category delivers when it is operating at its most coherent. The outdoor fireplace and the rattan loungers of the courtyard complete a property whose design sensibility is consistent from the entrance through to the rooftop terrace.