The courtyard
Open to the everyday.
Rooms gathered around a garden. Quiet thresholds that let life move between inside and out.
MERIDIAN / SPACES FOR A LIFE WELL LIVED
Between
earth & sky.
Courtyard House
Residential / Concept 01
01
COURTYARD HOUSE
A RESIDENTIAL CONCEPT
One tree.
One horizon.
A place between.
THE QUESTION THAT SHAPED THE HOUSE
The view was obvious.
The way to live with it wasn’t.
A coastal hillside offers almost too much: light, exposure, a horizon that pulls every room toward it. We began with a different question. Where would you sit when you wanted the world to feel smaller?
In this imagined brief, the house needed to hold two kinds of day: a long lunch with friends, and an ordinary morning with nowhere to be. A wall of glass could give both days a view. It could not, by itself, give either one a sense of shelter.
So the plan gathers around an olive tree. The courtyard becomes the quiet centre; the sea stays just beyond it. A deep roof, a continuous stone floor, and a sequence of shaded thresholds let the house open gradually.
- Starting point
- An exposed coastal slope
- Spatial idea
- A sheltered centre
- Material palette
- Concrete, stone, bronze
- Project status
- Unbuilt concept study
02 / A HOUSE EXPERIENCED IN SEQUENCE
Arrive slowly.
Stay a little longer.
A plan is also a choreography. Choose a moment to see how the same few spaces hold different parts of a day.
A diagram of relationships, not a construction drawing.
A CHANGE OF PACE
A glimpse before
a panorama.
The entrance turns away from the view. A low, shaded passage lets your eyes settle before the courtyard appears. The tree is the first thing you meet; the horizon comes later.
THE DESIGN DECISIONGive the arrival a pause, rather than revealing the whole house at the door.
03 / THE DETAIL THAT HOLDS THE IDEA
A room doesn’t
have to end
at the glass.
The stone continues under the sliding frame. The ceiling continues above it. When the opening is clear, the boundary is felt as a change in air and light, rather than a step in the floor.
The gesture is small. Its consequence is not: the terrace becomes part of the everyday route through the house, instead of a destination you have to decide to visit.
Original visualisation of the fictional Courtyard House concept.FROM A VIEW TO A DETAIL
The idea is in
the connection.
Look at the three lines that let an interior become a terrace. Choose a detail to bring it closer.
01 / THE SHELTERAn illustrated spatial reading of the concept image. Construction junctions require a developed technical design.
04 / A WIDER PRACTICE
One way of seeing.
Different places to begin.
Light, texture, and the spaces in between.
Three original visual studies.
MERIDIAN / THREE WAYS OF BELONGING01 / 03
SCROLL TO EXPLORE / OR CHOOSE A CHAPTER
FROM ATMOSPHERE TO ARCHITECTURE
Inside the drawing.
Explore light and material in an independent conceptual massing study.
01 / INSIDE THE DESIGN PROCESSExplore a separate interactive massing study ↓
COURTYARD HOUSE / CONCEPT STUDY 01CONCEPT GEOMETRY
01 — LIGHT, MATERIAL, PROPORTIONLate morning / soft daylight
A FINAL THOUGHT
A house is finished.
A life keeps changing.
The test of this concept is an ordinary day: where you leave your bag, how a conversation finds its place, whether the quiet room is still quiet when the table is full.
That is the question we would take into the next drawing—and into a conversation about your own place.
LET’S BEGIN A CONVERSATION.