Charmaine Chan has highlighted 25 recently completed courtyard houses in her book Courtyard living: Contemporary houses of the Asia-Pacific. Here she picks five of the most interesting.
As the book's title suggests, Courtyard living: Contemporary houses of the Asia-Pacific is a compilation of houses completed in the past 10 years across Asia and Oceania that are focused around an internal courtyard.
"What fascinates me is that courtyard houses can be found throughout the world ? in the Middle East, China, north Africa and elsewhere ? and that the typology has survived since antiquity," Chan told Dezeen.
"One hypothesis is that it developed from the need to let smoke escape through a hole in the roof of a house with a central fireplace. Over time the roof opening became larger and courtyards were born." Chan, who is design editor of Hong Kong-based newspaper the South China Morning Post, has been intrigued by the typology since visiting a mansion in Malaysia that was built around five courtyards.
"Twenty years ago, the Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion in Penang had a significant impact on me," she explained. "A Chinese courtyard house built in the late 19th century to accommodate nine generations of Cheongs, the house was opened to visitors after its restoration in the mid-1990s."
"For the only time in my life, I felt the energy of a building coursing through my body," she continued. "The feng shui heart of the mansion is said...