The overall street plan of East Zabrial has always aimed to ultimately face the sea. The whole city has often been described as a funnel pouring its inhabitants away from the surrounding desert and towards its vast harbour front. There has been much written about the Zabric affinity with the ocean, although the street plan also has a more practical cause. Most houses do face the ocean in order to catch sea breezes. In the blistering heat of a typical summer, any sort of indoor cooling is vitally important.
The city has been gradually evolving for over a millennium but a definite cut-off point came in 737. Before then, most streets were narrow and winding and the whole city plan was fantastically complex. All roads were built to maximise the catching of the sea breezes. This made living in East Zabrial more pleasant and passing through it dreadful. In 737 came the Great Fire. Reputedly started when a stove exploded in a private house by the docks, the fire spread rapidly through the July night. After several days the south of the city, then the main poor district, had been virtually destroyed. Many areas in the centre and around the docks were also gutted and even the north was badly damaged.
Fortunately, or otherwise, Zabrial was then ruled by the progressive King Staet, who used the destruction as a chance to rebuild the city virtually from scratch. In came a rational portcullis street plan built to ease the passage of the great trade routes, particularly the Malbotti Road, through the city towards the docks. Most of the new buildings were also to a standard type, following a freshly invented model. They were derided at the time but proved surprisingly durable, and many still stand today.
This model was aimed to increase the demarcation between outside and inside. There are virtually no external windows. From the street, the house just presents a door and then blank walls. Inside the house is built around two courtyards, the atrium and the peristyle. Neither have roofs, though are often covered with trellises holding vines. The atrium is supposed to be for entertaining guests; the peristyle, at the back, for private family occasions. Any wells and fountains the house is lucky enough to have generally stand in the centre. The two courtyards are the most commonly used areas in the house. Smaller, covered rooms – bedrooms, kitchens, pantries etc. – run off them.
The model has come to be seen as the classic Zabric house. It is still most common in the south of the city, however, which soon became the middle class district. The poor, in the centre and around the docks, are generally crammed into apartments in unstable five or six story towers. Clifftops in the north, meanwhile, looks very Dorlafan. The rich merchants who live there have long been imitating the nation's elite and build their mansions with imposing porticos and bay windows.