描述
Courtyards are elements that define the form and composition of the building, integrating and breaking up the grid.
They articulate exterior and interior, carrying the street into the building, nature into construction, privatising it; taking the courtyard into the house, integrating it as another enclosure, interior to exterior, more intimate and personal the less they are shared.
Qualifying a courtyard leads to its multiplication.
Proposals range from a conventional street to a courtyard storey, from garden and orchard to walled courtyards, Japanese gardens and living rooms in the sun, playing on eliminating planes and limits.
A courtyard is like a perspective that exceeds its physical limits, like a succession of planes: foreground, middle ground and background (the Japanese garden again).
It restores the relationships of building and street, building and plot, domesticating the street. Garden, orchard, walled courtyard extend our dominion over the place where we live. Nature is controlled, there are gradations of controlled and uncontrolled.
Courtyards provide new places to stop or stay, extending the intermediate kingdoms between exterior and interior.
Forecourts, transit between the building and the street, determine the relationship with the street.
