Courtyard House

The street is close. The plot is small. The brief asked for a house that could hold three generations without stacking them into a corridor of rooms.

We cut a court in the centre. Public rooms sit on the ground, opening to the court with a deep verandah. Bedrooms rise above, looking down into trees rather than into the next plot. The court is not decoration. It is the lung of the house — shade at noon, a place to sit in the evening, a way for wind to find a path through.

Walls are lime plaster, pale enough to bounce light. Floors are Kota, cool underfoot. Teak is used where hands meet the building: doors, a stair, a bench in the court. The architecture is quiet so the daily life can be loud.