13.0 Front Yard vs Courtyard

What is better a front yard or a courtyard? It may be a matter of taste, but let me look at the advantages and disadvantages of each of these.



Front yard
1. Give relief from the street or takes you out of touch with the street.
2. Gets you far away from your neighbors. (if you don’t get along this is a real plus)
3. Gives extra space for people to “walk” their dogs.
4. Lots of Landscape to express your creativity.
5. Good place for Kids to Play with the neighbors close to home, especially tackle football on the grass.
6. Good for Christmas and Halloween to decorate and show your spirit for the holidays.



American Suburban Front Yard



Best use of the Front Yard - Tackle Football

Courtyard

 
1. Private where you can enjoy the outdoors in privacy.
2. An additional room to the house where you can entertain or just relax.
3. Safe and secure place where you kids can play outside.
4. Great place to BBQ
5. An exterior space to orient rooms which can be opened up and be completely private from neighbors.
6. If exchanged for front yard, would make front entries closer and more in touch with street and neighbors. (But main openings to rooms can face courtyard not main road or neighbors).
7. Less space for neighbors to walk their dogs.
8. Less front landscape to display your creativity or holiday spirit.


Courtyard scale of an outdoor room - Zhou Zhuang, China



Courtyard with Swimming Pool Resort Home - Bali

You can see I am an advocate of the Courtyard. I just imagine if classic American suburban homes on 50’ x 100’ lots were to take the average from yard of 20’ x 20’ and say 75% was turned into a courtyard, that would be an inward facing external room of 15’ x 20’ which would be a marvelous courtyard! Having seen many old courtyard houses in Europe and Asia I can visualize all the possibilities. It may be anywhere from a lush garden, a fountain, or merely a hard paved outdoor room suitable for yoga, tai chi or BBQ.

Garden Courtyard - Shanghai

Courtyard with water feature for evaporative cooling - Bali

One trend over the years in suburban America is the reduction of lot size and the front yard. The real advantage to the neighborhood as a whole with decreased front yards and in many cases added porches to mediate between public and privated (see my earlier blog) is the increased quality of the streets, but also the reduced landscape area for maintenance hence also reduced impact of any poorly maintained front yard. And that has direct impact on perceived value of surrounding properties.

New American Suburban Home reduced front yard and porch with courtyard beyond

New American Suburban Home with courtyard 

Clearly my vote is for the courtyard over the front yard!  How about you?  Vote in our poll at the lower right column of this blog site.

Jiwa Studio
Singapore, November 2011
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