Your beautiful courtyard house can make your home feel like a private oasis. A courtyard in the middle of a house can add an intimate garden or a natural outdoor space within your home.
They are an incredible addition to your house plan design.
Courtyards have many benefits in a home. They can improve the performance and functionality of a house.
Benefits of a courtyard house include:
- Improving Natural Ventilation.
- Letting in Natural Light.
- Creating an area to Connect With Nature.
- Making stronger Indoor-Outdoor Connections.
- Creating an Additional Room.
- Adding a Private Outdoor Space.
- Having a Secured Exterior Area.
These benefits are excellent for any home but are particularly special in a tropical home. The great, all-year climate of the tropics is incredible for outdoor living. Hence, a courtyard can be a space that is useful throughout the year.
They can be an excellent addition to your strategies for creating the perfect home in a tropical climate.
Courtyards in the middle of your house improve your home’s performance, appearance and overall indoor environment.
In dense urban areas, courtyards are especially beneficial where no views are out to nature.
Here are some stunning courtyard house designs. These houses will give you design inspiration and ideas on incorporating a courtyard into your house plans.
1. Home Integrate Small Courtyard Garden
Binh House, Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam.
By VTN Architects.
Photo: Hiroyuki Oki | Binh House by VTN Architects.
The Binh House focuses on its connection to nature. They are several green spaces throughout the home, including the courtyard.
This small courtyard garden is on the ground floor.
It is between the dining and the ground-floor bedroom. This court has plants and trees and large glass sliding doors. These doors create a strong connection between the spaces and the outdoors.
This courtyard garden is in the middle of the house, between the main spaces on the ground floor. The rooms open directly out to them. In addition, you need to pass through this yard to get from one room to the next.
There are also views out of it, which is a good strategy for a functional courtyard.
It is also integrated into the home’s design and adds natural light and interaction with trees from the inside.
Also, it opens to the sky, allowing air movement through the house.
2. Brick Breeze Wall Jali Surrounding Front Courtyard
Cuckoo’s Nest, Bengaluru (Bangalore), India.
By BetweenSpaces.
Photo: Shamanth Patil J | Cuckoo’s Nest by BetweenSpaces
Cuckoo’s Nest sits on a corner lot. The courtyard is at the front of the property in the north-west corner. As you enter the home from the street, the entrance and corridor pass by the front yard garden.
What is unique about this courtyard is the beautiful red brick jali (a traditional Indian perforated screen) that separates it from the road. This tall jali wall provides privacy to the front yard and makes it more useable though it is next to the road.
However, it still allows for some visibility out to the road. It also lets natural ventilation flow through.
In addition to being next to the entry, the fore courtyard in Cuckoo’s Nest is next to the living room. It becomes an extension of the living room.
3. Indoor Courtyard For A Stair And Pond
Envelope House, Singapore.
By ASOLIDPLAN.
Photo: KHOO Guo Jie | Envelope House | ASOLIDPLAN
The indoor courtyard in Envelope House provides a space for a garden and pond on the ground floor. These trees and the water bring a natural element to the middle of the house.
In addition, the stair that climbs up the three three-storey house is in the courtyard.
This series of stairs, bridges and landings in the space provides opportunities for the family to interact with each other. An extended, multigenerational family lives in the home, all with their private spaces. The courtyard allows the various members of the family to cross paths.
Photo: KHOO Guo Jie | Envelope House by ASOLIDPLAN
Hence, this indoor courtyard becomes the heart of social interaction in the home.
Also, though it has a roof and skylights over the space, the top vents allow air movement through the room through the stack ventilation effect.
4. Courtyard To Be Oasis For The House
Griyoase House, Surabaya City, Indonesia.
By Andyrahman Architect.
Photo: Mansyur Hasan | Griyoase | Andyrahman Architect
The courtyards in this house are a significant influence. Griyoase, which is the name of the house, means oasis house. It comes from the architect’s intention to make the courtyard an oasis for the home.
In the middle of the house is the inner courtyard. It has a Moringa tree.
Doors open to this yard on three sides and bring natural daylight and ventilation into the middle of the house.
Image: Griyoase | Andyrahman Architect
Hence, the central court in this house acts as a way to connect with nature. It also allows natural light and ventilation and serves as a main focus for the surrounding rooms.
5. Courtyard Connects Kitchen and Dining Room.
Half Roof House, Vietnam.
By AD+Studio.
Photo: Quang Dam | Half Roof House by AD+studio
The Half Roof House is a renovation that emphasises connections with the outside. One of these connections is through the outdoor courtyard.
This house’s courtyard is between the kitchen and dining room. Both rooms open entirely out to it. No walls or doors are separating the kitchen from the yard.
In addition, an outdoor stair to the bedrooms on the upper floor also passes through the courtyard.
Some trees and plants help bring natural elements into the middle of the home.
Also, the openness of the courtyard to the sky and the rooms surrounding it allows lots of natural breezes to flow through the home.
6. Courtyard Brings In Fresh Wind And Lets Out Stale Air From The House
Manjadi House, Kollam, India.
By NO Architects Designers and Social Artists.
Photo: Redz Photography | Manjadi-The House of the Bead Tree by NO Architects Designers and Social Artists
A courtyard can be a great way to promote natural ventilation in a home. In Manjadi, it is a critical part of the home’s passive ventilation strategies.
Throughout the year, this site gets wind coming from 3 main directions.
Image: Manjadi-The House of the Bead Tree | NO Architects Designers And Social Artists
Depending on the direction of the wind, the courtyard in this house either lets fresh air in or stale air out. The designer uses a “lift” and “scoop” technique.
When the wind comes from the south, it passes through large windows in the home and, as it warms up, is lifted up and out through the courtyard. However, when the wind comes from the northeast or southwest, scoops at the top of the courtyard draw breezes into the central parts of the home.
In addition to the benefits of natural ventilation, trees, plants, and a pond add nature to the house’s centre.
7. Large Central Courtyard Garden Sets The Tone From The Entrance
New Manila House, Metro Manila, Philippines.
By PXP Design Workshop Co.
From the moment you enter this home, you enter this stunning courtyard.
It is in the middle of the house. The kitchen and living room surround the courtyard along with the main entrance. In addition, the bedrooms on the upper floor are around this courtyard.
Hence, these bedrooms look into it.
The lush green plants, trees, and grass bring a beautiful courtyard garden to the centre of the house design.
Furthermore, there is a vent under the transparent roof over the area. This arrangement allows natural light and heat to escape through the stack effect.
8. A Courtyard House With A View
Adrisa Residence, Koh Samui Island, Thailand.
By OfficeAT Co. Ltd.
Photo: Rungkit Charoenwat | Adrisa Residence by OfficeAT Co. Ltd.
Adrisa Residence is another house with a courtyard that is at the entrance. It is an entirely open-to-sky area allowing you to look through the house and see the fantastic views.
This courtyard house’s entire design maximises the incredible views from the site. Hence, it is no surprise that the courtyard also takes advantage of this.
A lawn with a couple of trees is in the space, providing nature in the home’s interior. There is also a reflecting pool in it.
Many spaces surround the court, including the living and dining rooms, the stair and a multiple-purpose room.
9. Single Storey House With A Courtyard In The Middle
Jabuticabeiras House, São Paulo, Brazil.
By Terra e Tuma.
Photo: Pedro Kok | Jabuticabeiras House by Terra e Tuma Arquitetos Associados
Maintaining the existing vegetation of this site was essential to the homeowner. Hence, the house creates strong connections between the inside and outside to take advantage of the natural surroundings.
The open courtyard with its plants and trees is part of the natural elements this house enjoys.
Since it is a single-storey house, most rooms have a direct or indirect relationship with the courtyard.
Three of the four sides of the courtyard have glass sliding doors to create strong connections to it. Some of the rooms, like the living and dining, also have glass sliding doors on the other sides of the room. This layout creates one-room deep spaces with lots of interaction with trees, plants and other natural elements.
The fourth side of the courtyard has a breeze block wall that takes you to the bedrooms.
There is also a roof garden that looks into the courtyard.
10. A Courtyard For Your Bedroom And Bathroom
Stacking Green, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
By VTN Architects.
Photo: Hiroyuki Oki | Stacking Green by VTN Architects
Stacking Green House has one of the most unique courtyards on this list.
A bedroom and bathroom share this courtyard.
However, apart from one tree, the only other thing in this courtyard is a vanity sink. The vanity becomes a simple, central object in the space.
Hence, this space feels like part of the bathroom.
Though it only has one tree and no views, it goes through the entire height of the four-storey home. In addition, the upper floors also have planters that line the whole facade, which adds more greenery and light.
The stair also passes over this yard on the upper floors.
Featured image: Adrisa Residence by OFFICE AT Co., Ltd.
Photographer: Rungkit Charoenwat
I am sorry. As photographed, most of these examples are quite lifeless and sterile.
the 1st example (in HCMC) is however an excellent and striking example.
(and i will point out a 1000 miles away from 97% of the very stereotypical VN house architectural designs (which word is somewhat generous itself) slavishly copied from a totally unsuitable French template for the past, what?, 100years. so even more a shockingly good design.)
The Manjadi house is another very nice example.
And finally, another VN example, the Half Roof house, what, to me, is the most notable, best things is in the sketch, not the photo – the fantastic massive open screened ventilation – EXACTLY what VN and other tropical house designs should all have.
Hey Dec,
Thanks for sharing your comment.
I agree that the three projects you highlighted are great examples of courtyard designs for tropical houses.
I also agree that there is a lack of good architectural design for houses in many tropical regions. The influence from European and North American regions is strong and often not the best example for our climate. It would be great to hear more of your views on this. Feel free to email me directly if you wouldn’t mind sharing.
Apart from incorporating courtyards and other similar strategies in a design, I think we can do a lot more to help improve the performance and comfort of general house designs in the tropics.