Courtyard Housing

Courtyard housing is one of the oldest forms of domestic development spanning at least
5,000 years and occurring in distinctive form in many regions of the world. Traditionally
associated with the Middle East where climate and culture have given shape to a
particular type of courtyard housing, other examples exist in Latin America, China and in
Europe where the model has been reinterpreted.
The book has four themes: history and theory of courtyard housing; climatic and
environmental factors; social and cultural dimensions; and finally contemporary
examples. The book argues that sustainable courtyard housing is possible and desirable; it
offers technical, planning and design solutions that allow the courtyard house to meet a
variety of social and commercial needs in the future. Areas addressed by experts include
gender issues and courtyard housing, the culture of cities in the Middle East, the
cosmology of the courtyard house, Islamic practice in the area of domestic construction
and climatic imperatives.
This book demonstrates through discussions on sustainability and regional identity and
via a series of case studies, that courtyard housing has a future as well as a past.
Brian Edwards is the Professor of Architecture at Edinburgh College of Art, Heriot-
Watt University. He has a PhD from the Mackintosh School of Architecture at Glasgow
University. With more than 16 books to his name, he has considerable expertise and
experience in the area of sustainable housing urban design and architecture.
Magda Sibley is the Director of the Architecture undergraduate course at Liverpool
University and the Departmental international links coordinator. She obtained her PhD in
Architecture from the School of Architecture at the University of Sheffield. Dr Sibley has
conducted various design workshops in cities such as Cairo, Amman and Fez, and has
recently completed research projects (funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research
Board) on housing and public baths in the world heritage cities of Fez, Aleppo and
Damascus.
Mohamad Hakmi is Dean of Architecture at Al-Baath University in Homs, Syria.
With a PhD from Sofia University he has held several senior academic positions in the
Middle East and is the author of a number of books and journal articles on architecture,
urban design and heritage conservation. His research interests include high-density
courtyard housing, an area of academic concern which flowed in part from his election a
few years earlier as Mayor of the City of Homs.
Peter Land is Professor of Architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology,
Chicago. Educated at the Architectural Association in London, Yale University and
Carnegie Mellon University, his research interests include high-density housing, low-
energy design and courtyard typologies. He was the UN Chief Architect for the Lima
Experimental Housing Project in Peru which features a neighbourhood of 450 courtyard
houses.