Courtyard House | No Architecture

NOA completes The Courtyard House in Aurora, OR. This 2,489 ft² (231 m²) structure is located on a hill overlooking protected wet­lands, cantilevering towards views of the Pudding River on one side, while carving into the ground on the other. Entered through a sunken entrance court, the living spaces unfold in a continuous loop around a faceted glass courtyard.

The glass courtyard optimizes passive solar gain and brings light and air into the below ground in­teriors. There, two L-shaped cores also define interior circulation and contain all requirements for daily living, such as bathrooms, showers, closets, kitchen and mechanicals. In contrast to a conventional house with a series of unused bedrooms, during the day the Courtyard House is experienced as a single loft with every room becoming living, while at night every room becoming sleeping.

NOA Founder Andrew Heid commented: “By downsizing the conventional house by one-third, the Courtyard House sponsors more collective and ecological forms of life without sacrificing the necessary privacy of daily living. This new organization extends the exterior environment inside and expands it socially. There, co-habitational activities may be forged between inter-generational family and friends, while fulfilling the new demands of a dispersed aging population.”