Courtyard architecture
An overview of projects, products and exclusive articles about courtyard architecture
Project • By Gunz & Künzle Architekt*innen • Auditoriums
Vocational school for construction trades
The new vocational school for construction trades is located in a central area of Zurich, Switzerland. Gunz & Künzle Architects designed the building to maximize the number of classrooms while also creating valuable public spaces for the neighborhood. The slender building follows the street and creates a spacious courtyard that connects to the public functions on the school's first floor.
Federico Farinatti
Federico Farinatti
Federico Farinatti
Federico Farinatti
Federico Farinatti
Federico Farinatti
Federico Farinatti
Federico Farinatti
This piano nobile, which acts as a truss frame structure, is suspended over the gymnasiums that extend from the basement to the ground floor. While th... More
News • News • 10 Jan 2025
Kirkland Fraser Moor adopts biophilic approach to design of picturesque Foxglove House
Multidisciplinary architectural studio Kirkland Fraser Moor (KFM) has adopted a biophilic approach to the design of a low-carbon family home in the English village of Wiggington, Hertfordshire. The picturesque residence, named Foxglove House, replaces a small stable block, its unobtrusive design having a low visual impact on the surrounding landscape. KFM’s effective approach to massing and orientation resulted in a fourfold increase in the new home’s footprint (gross internal floor area 285 square meters – 3,068 square feet) without any adverse impact on the green belt or “AONB” countryside location.
Edmund Sumner
Kirkland Fraser Moor
The home’s design concept centers around a single-s... More
Project • By Atelier LI • Housing
Pudong Villa
This holiday villa is located in the rural area of Pudong, Shanghai. The owner plans to demolish the old house and construct a new one to accommodate two families. When they return from urban life to the countryside, they can spend weekends and holidays with the grandparents. The extended family can gather together, enjoy the tranquility of rural life, and unwind in a natural setting.
WM STUDIO
WM STUDIO
Our main design strategies include the following elements. “Green” is placed first. Although the site overlooks an orchard and has a ground area in front of the building area that could serve as a garden, we aim to weave greenery throughout the house to dissolve the boundaries and isolation between interior and exteri... More
News • News • 23 Apr 2024
Taktik Design revamps sunken garden oasis in Montreal college
At the heart of Montreal’s Collège de Maisonneuve, Montreal-based Taktik Design has completed the development of a lush and colorful sunken garden oasis housed under a glass roof. The project epitomizes Taktik’s approach to biophilic design.
Maxime Brouillet
The interior garden was first created in 1972 as a result of the addition of a new college wing. A glass roof transformed the “Brutalist-style courtyard” into a veritable all-weather greenhouse. A popular spot for students, the space was very much in need of an upgrade.
Maxime Brouillet
At its core, biophilic design enhances our connection — visual and non-visual — with the natural world in a way that increases health, happi... More
News • News • 22 Feb 2024
Herzog & de Meuron bases SIP Main Campus on the concept of a courtyard house
International architectural practice Herzog & de Meuron has completed SIP Main Campus, a large-scale innovation complex situated on the north-west edge of Allschwil in Switzerland. The building’s structural concept allows for a variety of applications by reducing interior divisions and vertical supports wherever possible. The flexible nature of the construction combined with the use of durable building materials, extends the structure’s potential lifespan. Its substantial courtyard offers a space for recreational activity.
Julien Lanoo
Julien Lanoo
The SIP (Switzerland Innovation Park) Main Campus is part of the BaseLink site, an ecosystem of companies, start-ups, universities, and foundations working in l... More
News • Archello Awards • 22 Dec 2023
Casa Ederlezi winner of public vote for House of the Year (Urban)
Located in the metropolitan area of Monterrey, Mexico, Casa Ederlezi has been selected by public vote as Archello Awards 2023 House of the Year (Urban). The design by Practica Arquitectura works with the limited dimensions of its plot and project brief to carve out a series of tranquil and personal architectural experiences, with ample green space and 360-degree views from the expansive terrace at the top of the house.
Apertura Arquitectónica
The architects explain that in general, their projects start by thinking about voids, the spaces outside the program where the essence of the space can be found. In this case, despite the site having limited dimensions of 5 meters by 20 meters, they were able to create a series o... More
News • News • 3 Aug 2023
Studio Farris Architects’ Zottegem residential project integrates contemporary and historic architecture
Studio Farris Architects has completed a new residential project in Zottegem, a small city in East Flanders, Belgium. An urban redevelopment and regeneration scheme, it is located on the site of the former OLV Collegium, a 19th century building in Zottegem’s center. The project’s integration of contemporary and historic architecture reconnects this once abandoned site to the city’s urban fabric.
Martino Pietropoli
OLV Collegium, a former neo-Gothic school built in 1862, was a neglected building in Zottegem’s historic center and was damaged by a fire in 2012. Purchased by a developer in 2017, Studio Farris Architects was selected to design a masterplan for new homes and public underground parking. In line wi... More
News • News • 2 Jan 2023
Vietnam’s Wyndham Club House bridges modernity and tradition with a contemporary translation of vernacular brick architecture
In the coastal resort of Phu Quoc, Vietnam, the Wyndham Club House by MIA Design Studio offers an architecture that is both modern and traditional, making the most of the sun, the wind, grass, and water.
Trieu Chien
Constructed with raw brick and exuding the precision of the local mason, the spacing of the brickwork provides excellent natural ventilation and soft sunlight filtering into the building, a prerequisite of architecture in tropical climates. At night, the building glows like a lantern when illuminated.
Trieu Chien
Inside the lobby space is a courtyard, another hallmark of tropical architecture. This courtyard brings daylight deep into the central portion of the building, where a reflecting pool that help... More
News • News • 2 Jan 2023
Villa LL by Siana Architecte in Casablanca embraces pristine forms and traditional Moroccan architecture
In a residential area of North Casablanca on a plot of 1000 square meters, Villa LL by Siana Architecte (Mohamed Amine Siana) features curves, sensual lines, and an architectural approach that is protective without being stifling.
Fernando Guerra FG+SG
The exterior of the house presents a solid façade that ensures privacy. The sculpted, extended vertical planes of the façade allow for strategic openings that provide views to the outside world without allowing views into the private realm that lies beyond.
Fernando Guerra FG+SG
Influenced by traditional Moroccan architecture and response to climate, the house's interior features a reflective and intimate courtyard that offers a place to relax awa... More
Project • By Common Practice • Urban Green Spaces
Stadscanyon Oostenburg
In the new urban district on Amsterdam’s Oostenburgereiland, a compact residential ensemble was realised on an exceptionally narrow plot along the blind side wall of a high parking building. Common Practice and Studio AAAN made the masterplan with 64 dwellings around a striking courtyard and designed two apartment buildings with special mid-rent housing, in which as many collective and private spaces as possible have a relationship with the serene courtyard.
Max Hart Nibbrig
Within the complex conditions, the plan seeks to find human scale and a special living experience with various architectural interventions. The mass is divided into four buildings, each with its own entrance hall, typology and character, and at the same time... More
Project • By MCK Architects • Private Houses
Oystercatcher House
For some years a Sydney-based family had enjoyed their holidays in a tiny pre-fabricated house on the beachfront lot but had finally outgrown it. They wanted to improve the accommodation and take better advantage of the opportunities of the location and aspect while retaining a relaxed, simple pattern of inhabiting the site.The design response was to retain the open, exposed, and windswept nature of the site, and to allow the envelope of the house to provide privacy, security, and protection from the elements, literally the house as a fence.
Prue Ruscoe
Prue Ruscoe
The desire for a modest and unassuming presentation to the street drove the idea of the house as an object which had weathered in place in the dunes. The slanted roof... More
News • News • 19 Jul 2022
BURR Studio turns Spanish industrial heritage into artist residence
A home and studio of the writer Juan Ramón Silva Ferrada, Blasón by BURR Studio forms part of a project series called ‘Elements for Industrial Recovery,’ a strategic toolset with the aim of protecting Madrid’s built industrial heritage.
Maru Serrano
Following an explosive rise in property values, along with noise and traffic control measures, industrial activity in the centre of Madrid has gradually decreased over the past years. Recent urban planning regulations encouraging owners to change land use from industrial to residential has amplified this trend, leading to a near extinction of this typology in the city. This project specifically aims to prevent the eradication of this typology.
Maru... More
News • News • 30 Mar 2022
NUA arquitectures rehabilitate one of the many uninhabited houses in the historical centre of Tarragona, Spain
Rehabilitating one of the may uninhabited houses in the historical centre of Tarragona, Spain, Mediona 13 by NUA arquitectures is an intervention that preserves as much as possible of the existing building fabric while bringing in more natural light and a flexible living concept that can be understood as 3 homes in 1. In other words, a house that can accommodate anything from 3 small households to a single large family.
José Hevia
The rehabilitation introduces a new gate entry that allows light to travel through to the centre of the house, where there is an inner square that gathers inhabitants and directs them to their private units.
José Hevia
The existing courtyard is widened with new windows and ope... More
News • News • 25 Mar 2022
New Urban Campus for Bocconi University features SANAA’s signature theme of transparency
The new Urban Campus for the Bocconi University is located on a large site close to the city centre of Milan, adjacent to the existing university. In a radical departure from the axial relationships and rectilinear volumes typical of the adjacent campus, the project comprises several sinuous buildings with shimmery metallic skin.
Filippo Fortis
Each building on the new campus is dedicated to its own program: the teaching and administration building (several interconnected cells), dormitories and a recreation centre. Only half the 35,000 square meter site is occupied by new buildings, with the remainder dedicated to green space.
Philippe Ruault
Transparency is a signature of SANAA, and this project is no exception. The see-... More
News • News • 8 Feb 2022
% Arabica coffee concept extends the vibrant living and cultural atmosphere of an alley environment into a café
According to B.L.U.E. Architecture, the philosophy of Chengdu’s %Arabica is to “see the world through coffee” by providing a café space located in Chengdu’s historical and cultural landmark Kuanzhai Alley that provides opportunities for people to gather, communicate and fully experience the local urban culture.
Eiichi Kano
Extending the vibrant living and cultural atmosphere of the alley environment into the café, the architects renovated an existing building to create a dynamic public space that provides a rich and solid spatial experience.
Eiichi Kano
A busy commercial and cultural area, Kuanzhai Alley mainly consists of three northwest-southeast streets, which are connected by... More