Courtyard Housing in the UK

The Garden City Movement has been a trigger for the design development of the courtyard house for the working class single family in Northern Europe in the late-1920s. This house form was experimented with in the United Kingdom since the late-1950s. The manuscript presents a comprehensive database for designers, planners and policy makers of the courtyard housing schemes designed and/ or developed in the United Kingdom from 1950s to the present day. The results from the post occupancy evaluation studies of three recently completed courtyard house schemes in the United Kingdom were also discussed. It also establishes that in the United Kingdom, the long-narrow with the internal court configuration performed (thermally) better than L-, I-, Z- and T-shaped courtyard house. Additional, the empirical evidence from the housing mobility study seem to suggest that design (housing and environment) constitutes one of the most important variable influencing individuals’ housing mobility in the England and Wales. To sum up, the study suggests that courtyard house type (when it is well designed) is well suited for creating a contemporary family house in an urban area in the United Kingdom.