Chapter 13: The benefits of a courtyard within your design. (2024)

FAQs

What are the benefits of courtyard design? ›

Another teacher felt that the outdoor courtyard has become a “place where students can enjoy some green space and fresh air. I believe it gives them a way to relax from the orderly rows of indoor classrooms; this helps them to be more insightful and creative.

Courtyards have historically been used for many purposes including cooking, sleeping, working, playing, gardening, and even places to keep animals. Before courtyards, open fires were kept burning in a central place within a home, with only a small hole in the ceiling overhead to allow smoke to escape.

In China, the courtyard was a central space for multiple homes and families, and used as a place for privacy and tranquility. The medieval European courtyard was used for working, gathering and protection. With such a rich and diverse history, it's no surprise that the courtyard continues to withstand the test of time.

Courtyards in architecture function as a unique way to bring the outside in. Courtyards are outdoor spaces typically enclosed on three or four sides and are open to the sky. Unlike a backyard, courtyards can be located within the footprint of a building to provide an alternate form of recreation space.

A courtyard is an area outside a building that's framed and somewhat enclosed by walls. Your friend might ask you to meet her in the courtyard of her apartment complex. In cities, courtyards provide small, private outdoor areas. Courtyards are often nestled between buildings, or tucked away behind them.

Some schools have a central enclosed courtyard to provide natural light to the interior rooms and/or to provide students a place outside to study. However, courtyards can present a security challenge, as the egress path is typically through the school, which could allow unauthorized access to the building.

Courtyards introduce cross ventilation into a building, using the courtyard design to break the house into smaller, more manageable areas, with more walls opening onto the outdoors, so it's much easier to encourage a gentle breeze into the home.

Children who are taught in an outdoor setting – like an outdoor classroom – score higher on standardized test scores that children taught in a traditional classroom. Why? These students are developing the problem-solving and critical thinking skills often overlooked in traditional classrooms.

What are the disadvantages of a courtyard? ›

An inner courtyard can quickly become an obstacle to natural light and plunge a living space into darkness. The disadvantages of a courtyard can be the height of the walls which block the sun's rays if it is surrounded by buildings.

Surrounded by arcades and colonnades, paved, landscaped with water bodies, various plants, shade and light, they all played an important role in our social and working life (Meir, 2000). Moreover, courtyard as a space can provide climatic as well as visual or acoustic protection.

The Benefits of Internal Courtyards

One of the most significant advantages of internal courtyards is that they bring in natural light, reducing lighting costs, and promoting passive cooling, making them eco-efficient.

Courtyards are usually open to the sky, but can also be partially covered, such as by a pergola, or completely covered by transparent coverings, such as glass, or polycarbonate.

courtyard (n.) "enclosure around or adjacent to a house," 1550s, from court (n.) + yard (n. 1).

In the courtyard plants and fountains are used to cool the air through evaporations. In hot humid regions courtyard plans are good for encouraging through ventilation. In northern climates the courtyard archetype is used to allow sunlight to penetrate into the house.

Courtyards introduce cross ventilation into a building, using the courtyard design to break the house into smaller, more manageable areas, with more walls opening onto the outdoors, so it's much easier to encourage a gentle breeze into the home.

Courtyard houses made a lot of sense. The residents got outdoor space that was secure and usable at all times of day; nobody had to lock a window or door that opened into the central area. It provided lots of natural ventilation. The roofs were often used for rainwater collection.

The houses consist of a central courtyard surrounded by several small rooms. They range between 250 and 700 m² (about 2,700 and 7,500 ft²) in area. Monumental construction on this scale is unknown elsewhere during this period. In Ancient Roman architecture courtyard houses were built around an atrium.