Abax Architects

Homes Featuring Courtyards｜Custom Home Examples by Architectural Offices18Picks｜A Residence with an Interior Sky

Author: Qurasuki Editorial Department

The courtyard house is a dwelling type that reconciles privacy and openness by turning away from the exterior while drawing rich natural elements inward. A courtyard enclosed by the building becomes a private outdoor space that can be used with confidence and also functions as the core for daylighting and natural ventilation. Even on sites in dense urban areas or along busy streets, introducing a courtyard creates an environment where occupants can enjoy greenery and light without concern for external views. The architectural practice designs the courtyard’s size and position, its relationship to the building, and the planting scheme integrally, informed by the site geometry and surrounding context. Please explore examples of residences that possess a quiet, generous interior sky.

Homes Featuring Courtyards

Komagawa House

Kumi Inoue Architects

This residence, sited on an 18-tsubo (approximately 59.5 m²) lot in a residential area of Higashisumiyoshi Ward, Osaka, is designed to withdraw from the bustle of the adjacent shopping street. To achieve this, the entrance is located on the second floor, accessed via an exterior staircase and mediated by a terrace that leads into the interior. The terrace functions as an intermediary zone between inside and outside, providing an expanded sense of living. The second floor is divided into two volumes, with a Japanese-style room arranged like a detached annex, creating small moments of richness and tranquility in everyday life.

House of Earthen Floor and Cloister

12mm Architects

A stoic residence housing a gallery, located in Nagakute City, Aichi Prefecture. The plan uses a courtyard placed at the center of the building as a focal point, allowing daily life to unfold beautifully. The entire ground‑floor slab is finished in steel‑trowelled concrete, and the exterior walls are unified with a mortar steel‑trowel render treated with a water‑repellent coating — simple wet‑applied materials that retain the traces of craftsmen’s handwork. The pared‑back, simple and tranquil spaces, stripped of superfluous ornament, present the occupant’s daily life and art in a modern manner.

Chiyogaoka House — A spacious, nearby home for the child-rearing generation —

Tokuhiro Norimatsu Architect

This residence, located in a residential area of Gakuenmae in Nara City, is designed for a couple and their three children. The courtyard, living room, and kitchen are arranged in a triangular configuration to create a generous, open space that becomes the center of family life. A small raised tatami platform adjacent to the living room serves as a play area, a space for learning, and a place to relax, accompanying the family as it grows. Designed to accommodate future change while naturally bringing family members closer together, the home fosters warm, supportive connections.

House with a Courtyard for Living with Cats

Archiplace

A dwelling for a couple engaged in manufacturing who are cat lovers, and their young child. Under the theme “a comfortable house in which one can truly relax,” the project was carefully planned by reading the conditions of a newly developed residential district. By arranging the building in a U-shape to enclose a courtyard on the east side, privacy is secured while natural light and cross-ventilation are drawn deep into the interior of the house. In addition, gently zoning separate spaces for people and for the cat creates an environment in which both can live comfortably and without stress. It is a home where the family and their beloved cat cultivate tranquil time together.

Garage House by the Kizugawa River

In-Ex Design Co., Ltd.

This house was conceived from a site condition with an approximate 1.2 m level change and the owner's passion for cars and motorcycles. The approach from street level gently guides you toward the courtyard while offering views of the garage; beyond it, the living spaces unfold in a striking composition. The courtyard, positioned between the garage and the living/dining/kitchen (LDK), blurs the boundary between interior and exterior and expands the stage for daily life. The interior is unified in achromatic tones except for the texture of wood, providing a backdrop that accentuates the presence of cherished belongings. It is a residence filled with abundant living spaces in which both inside and outside are fully and deliberately inhabited.

Courtyard House

Far East Design Lab.

Despite its location in a densely built residential area, this is an open courtyard house that opens widely onto an internal courtyard. The living and dining areas are planned to integrate with the courtyard, creating a comfortable living environment that admits daylight and natural ventilation without concern for surrounding sightlines. Attention has also been paid to life with a pet cat: design measures that allow the cat freedom of movement are incorporated throughout, including a small window connecting the living room and a dedicated cat space. The result is a gentle, richly realized home where family and cat can comfortably live while remaining aware of one another.

Gray ravine

Takeshi Hirobe Architects

This home for a family of four was planned on a 26-tsubo site densely surrounded by houses. By placing a small courtyard and stairwell at the center of the home and guiding the soft light reflected by curved walls into the interior, it creates a connection with nature. The configuration was inspired by the ancient settlement of Mesa Verde, protected by a canyon yet open to the earth. Changes in floor levels and built-in benches create a variety of places to stay, bringing a rich sense of depth to the small spaces. It is a delicate home where light and daily life quietly overlap.

3-Wall Fold House

ARCHIXXX Satoru Shinno Architectural Design

This home is located in a quiet residential neighborhood in Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture. A windowless white wall faces the busy road, ensuring security and privacy. Meanwhile, a machiya-style courtyard is positioned at the center of the house, bringing natural light and fresh air into the living room at the rear while blocking views from outside. By clearly defining the areas to be closed off and those to be opened, the design creates a bright, well-ventilated and tranquil living space that responds to its urban surroundings.

House M/M

Yoshihara Tamaki Architectural Design

This residence began as a project rooted in the client’s memories of the land where they spent their formative adolescence. Seeking good cross-ventilation and daylighting, the site’s corner position and its frontage on a school route presented the challenge that a simple south-facing orientation would not provide a calm setting. Taking into account site coverage limitations and utilizing the corner-lot regulatory relief, the plan is configured to enclose a courtyard in order to make maximum use of the lot. The living room is arranged to the south while bedrooms and workspaces are placed to the north, yet light and breezes circulate via the courtyard, generating a gentle sense of unity. The courtyard is directly accessible from the living room and the entry, functioning as a semi-outdoor space where occupants can spend time without concern for being overlooked from the street.

House in Endo

Kurashi no Jōzōsho

Responding to a site enclosed by residences on all sides, this dwelling brings light and greenery into a U‑shaped courtyard at its heart. Employing an east‑facing garden strategy to capture morning light from the east while securing daylighting from the south, the design achieves a sense of openness that belies its total floor area of 26 tsubo (approximately 86 m²). A deck level with the living room provides a pleasant, outward extension of the living space. Trees such as Japanese maple (Acer palmatum) and olive animate the seasons, completing a home in which the family can peacefully spend the years together.

A Courtyard House That Embraces Light

AtelierMA

This courtyard house achieves both tranquility and a sense of openness despite being located in a residential neighborhood. Mortar-finished walls enclosing the site gently screen views from outside while guiding natural light into the interior. The walls continue seamlessly from the courtyard into the house, creating rich patterns of light and shadow as they receive the changing light throughout the day. The living-dining-kitchen area opens broadly onto the courtyard, creating a configuration in which the interior and exterior are softly connected. Even in a densely built-up residential area, the house provides a tranquil place where the view extends upward toward the sky.

House on the North Side of Chigasaki East Coast

Tada Architectural Design Office

This is a two-generation house built along Yūzō Street in Chigasaki. It was planned with the theme of integrating nature and family connections into daily life while providing security and structural robustness. At the center of the residence a courtyard-house configuration is adopted, enclosing a central courtyard. Trees transplanted from the existing garden and a wood deck gently connect the parent household and the child household. Openings placed throughout admit light, breeze, and greenery, achieving an appropriate sense of distance between households while enabling rich communication. The dwelling harmonizes functionality and comfort.

NICO — A Home Filled with Natural Light and the Scent of Wood

YIA Ishiue Yoshihiro Architectural Design Office

A residence situated on a corner lot in an older housing district that places light and greenery at the center of daily life. The composition encloses a large courtyard with two house-shaped volumes, screening views from the exterior while admitting abundant natural light into the interior. Large windows opening generously to the courtyard and a skylight over the stairwell void deliver soft light throughout the house. In the unified spaces that gently connect areas other than the private rooms, variations in material textures introduce rich expression. A home that nurtures family connections while being enveloped by light and greenery.

lani

*studioLOOP Architects

This home contains a garage for four cars and a water feature that serves as a swimming pool in summer and a reflecting pool in winter. The living spaces are separated from the ground, while the lower level is designed as a pilotis-style parking space with no columns or walls at the four corners. Upon ascending from the enclosed first floor to the upper level, the water surface spreads out at eye level. On the second floor, unified in white, the rooms are arranged around the reflecting pool, with reflected light creating shimmering patterns across the interior ceilings. In the glass-enclosed courtyard, the sky, water, and multiple reflected images of the pool overlap.

House in Minamiashigara

Tenkosha First-Class Architects Office

This is a residence for a young married couple and their two cats. In response to a newly reconfigured streetscape undergoing land readjustment, the composition is closed to the outside while opening inward. A U-shaped plan contains a courtyard with a "kakuremino" tree placed at its center, creating a gentle buffer from the street. A deck on the second floor provides separation from the surrounding environment while ensuring adequate daylighting. The interior is organized in a Japanese-modern style, prioritizing calmness and refinement rather than antiquarian qualities. It is a home whose character deepens with time.

Light-Gathering House

Yosuke Tomiya Architectural Design Co., Ltd.

This residence is located in a densely built-up residential area near central Sapporo. To ensure access to natural light even as more buildings are added around it in the future, the design combines a south-facing courtyard, a void, large openings on the second floor, and clerestory windows extending to the height of the third floor, bringing in light from different levels. The shape of the walls facing the courtyard also captures reflected and indirect light, while the stairwell functions as a natural ventilation stack. The result is an open living environment filled with light and fresh air, while maintaining privacy in the city.

next — RC house with a courtyard in Tsukuba City

e do design architects

"next" — a second house designed to be enjoyed from age 60 onward, for the next chapter of life. As a place to let go of the businesses you have built up to now and move on to a new stage, we planned spaces that include a studio for creative activities and an area with theater functions, a spacious living-dining-kitchen where you can relax, and amenities such as a sauna and a training room. A residence that richly embraces work, hobbies, health, and daily life, enabling you to fully enjoy the time ahead. It is "next", brimming with excitement and opening a new door in life.

A Residence Closed to the Street, Open to Greenery: A House with a Small Courtyard and a Generous Veranda

Yoshihiro Yamamoto Architects Associates

Situated on the edge of a new town, the site sits between a recent housing area and rich natural landscape with an old settlement. The house is a court-house organized around a small courtyard, with rooms linked in sequence and opening onto a large south-facing verandah. Opening the entrance reveals a continuous sequence connecting the entry, courtyard, Japanese room, verandah and garden.