Apart from being aesthetically pleasing, an indoor courtyard is a great multi-tasking space, providing the home with many benefits. Firstly for how it might be used; as an intimate entertaining space, a safe and private area for kids to play or a small sanctuary.
But also for how it might benefit the lives of those within the home by increasing natural sunlight and natural ventilation. If well designed an indoor courtyard can help stabilise indoor temperatures and reduce the cost of power bills because of the amount of natural light it brings indoors.
The obvious advantages of indoor courtyards are that they offer genuine privacy says David Ponting. Photo: Ponting Fitzgerald
It’s all about light, says Aaron Paterson of Paterson Architecture Collective. “As the sun moves around your house, a courtyard gives you many vantage points to feel its warmth…it’s a fabulous way to heat your home.”
For an urban situated house disconnected from nature, an indoor courtyard is the best way to bring nature back into the home.
“Courtyards are inward looking and therefore offer privacy and an intimate connection to interior spaces. It’s a very different feeling than a traditional backyard,” Paterson says.
An indoor courtyard or garden surrounded by glass walls is a great way to bring light into areas with insufficient natural light. Photo: istock
“They’re also good on coastal sites when often an afternoon sea breeze kicks in and you need shelter from that,” says Aimer.
Added maintenance and cleaning are things to consider when taking on an indoor courtyard and your choice of plants goes hand in hand with this. Deciduous trees and plants will drop leaves that could end up indoors. To save time on sweeping and clearing away of said leaves, chose coniferous plants.
David Ponting design director of Ponting Fitzgerald created an indoor courtyard within a house he designed, it has a centralised grassed area, edged with pebbles and concrete and a smaller garden dotted with palm trees.
Indoor courtyards are ideally suited, but not limited to, buildings with little or no backyard. Photo: istock
He says, “the effect on arrival is experiencing a gradual reveal of the quiet, hidden space at the centre and the delight of discovering this intimate space.”
Humanising an indoor courtyard, he says, all comes down to landscaping, colour and texture.
Orientation is another factor to consider, says Paterson. Aimer suggests a north-west aspect to get the last of the sun, “this tends to be when these spaces are most used,” she says.
There are no hard and fast rules on what indoor courtyards should look like, they can be covered, uncovered or partially covered, be paved, have timber decking, be planted or pebbled.
Generally it’s easier to incorporate an indoor courtyard into a new build, but they can be built in to existing houses.
“We have added a cut-out courtyard to an old two-storey bungalow,” says Paterson. “It was quite a big effort but it brought a massive amount of light into an otherwise dark space.”
– This story originally appeared on stuff.co.nz