Courtyard Housing around the World: A Cross-Cultural Analysis and Contemporary Relevance

Abstract

The courtyard house is one of the oldest dwelling types, spanning at least 5,000 years and occurring in distinctive forms in many parts of the world across climates and cultures. This article takes a panoramic view and makes a cross-cultural analysis of the courtyard houses in six cultures: Chinese, Indian, Islamic, Greco-Roman, Spanish, and Hispanic-American, by addressing four areas of concern: cosmic axis and architectural symbolism, favorable orientation of buildings, socio-spatial organization, and cultural activities in the courtyard houses. It then looks at contemporary new courtyard housing around the world, which is often provided with common courtyards and shared facilities to meet human desire for social connectedness and the quest for sustainable architecture and urbanism. The paper concludes that the courtyard form is a common heritage of humanity that has a past as well as a future, because it satisfies human physical and psychological needs of a habitat. Moreover, the courtyard form has been built all over the world, and the shared meaning of the courtyard house is an earthly paradise, from which one may construe that the meaning of the world is a courtyard garden. The paper finally proposes a new courtyardgarden housing system that may have universal application.