# The courtyard house, revisited
Author: Hana Sato
Author URL: https://demofolio.superblog.click/author/hana-sato/
Published: 2026-08-01
Category: Houses
Category URL: https://demofolio.superblog.click/category/houses/
Meta Title: The courtyard house, revisited · Folio
Meta Description: The oldest plan there is, built again on a suburban plot. Owen photographed it a year after the owners moved in.
Tags: houses, courtyard, plans, gardens
Tag URLs: houses (https://demofolio.superblog.click/tag/houses/), courtyard (https://demofolio.superblog.click/tag/courtyard/), plans (https://demofolio.superblog.click/tag/plans/), gardens (https://demofolio.superblog.click/tag/gardens/)
URL: https://demofolio.superblog.click/the-courtyard-house-revisited/

![A courtyard with a tree, seen from inside the house](https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1777620817586-f06aae288691?ixid=M3w3OTAzOTJ8MHwxfHNlYXJjaHw4fHxjb3VydHlhcmQlMjBob3VzZSUyMHRyZWUlMjBpbnRlcmlvcnxlbnwxfDB8fHwxNzg4NjM0NzI0fDA&ixlib=rb-4.1.0&w=1600&q=80&auto=format&fit=crop)

A courtyard house turns its back on the street and its face to the middle. It is how people built in hot places for three thousand years, and it works in a cold one too, for a different reason: privacy.

## The plan

Four wings around a square of garden, each one room deep, so every room has the courtyard on one side and the world on the other. The front door opens into the garden, not the house.

## A year on

The tree has grown into the space, which was the plan. The owners eat outside from April to October. The street side, blank when we photographed it at completion, has a climbing rose on it now.

> The house is not the building. It is the square of sky in the middle.

## What we would change

The kitchen wing faces north. In a courtyard house that is a mistake you notice in January. Next time the kitchen goes on the south side and the bedrooms take the shade.


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