Courtyards: Aesthetic, Social, and Thermal Delight

This is a great resource for learning about this architectural type. The author takes most of his concrete examples from Latin American architecture but analyses them in a broadly applicable way. Great analysis of formal variations and how courtyards regulate heat and light. Very useful for a research project I’m working on.

"Courtyards: Aesthetic, Social, and Thermal Delight" begins with a brief history of courtyards including itemized accounts of such topics as placement within a building, orientation, exposure, and the promotion of temperature conditions within a courtyard.Over 50 full-color photographs from Spain and Latin America supplement the second section. Temperature charts, solar diagrams, and other key technical data accompany these images.Finally an extensive section of planning and design guidelines highlighting factors for consideration such as daytime/nighttime temperature ranges, zoning regulations, proportions, and proposals for driveways and use of rainwater.Architects, landscape architects, and building designers will find useful information for creating or renovating any courtyard. Students will also find this an inclusive reference. This is not a title of tremendous value to the casual reader.

Great reading, good info, clear examples -- this is a very, very useful book!Expected a used book, but this came as brand new!

Excellent source with wonderful photos.

Another insult to an author, and to readers, for printing what is a phenomenal book so poorly. This has got to be a landmark book on Courtyard style, and to print it with nearly invisible ink and font, is a disgrace. My vision isn't bad, but maybe the ADA people could get on publisher's backs. At least I can enjoy the photographs and drawings. Mr. Reynolds - you was (sIc) robbed and so were we.

I am a design professional with a particular interest in courtyards, patios, and indoor outdoor garden rooms. In my business I look at courtyards and patios as part of the living space. Important as the living room or bedroom, a courtyard is sometimes the center of life and delight in a residence or commercial building. The Reynold's book "Courtyards" takes the subject as seriously as I do. If I cannot spend months or years traveling around the world studying courtyards at least I can read this book and immerse myself in ALL the history, micro-climatic impact, and design information. There are photographs of courtyards in Mexico, Spain, Argentina, and elsewhere. There is a chapter on how temperature levels fluctuate (or don't) in courtyards and how these spaces have provided social and cultural settings. For instance in some Islamic cultures where women are supposed to be kept hidden away from the rest of society they spend much of their lives in -- you guessed it -- a courtyard concealed within a residence. There is detailed technical data about aspect ratios and thermal sailing and I am studying all of it. I want to be fully informed so that when I create courtyards for clients I use valid historical, technical, and cultural knowledge. It's nice to come across a book that is a detailed study of what I make my living creating -- indoor/outdoor garden rooms. Note: I withheld one star from my rating because I wished some of the photographs were larger.

Lovely book!

Courtyards is a terrific book, the result of 20+ years of loving research. Oregon Professor John Reynolds is crazy for courtyards and it certainly shows.A courtyard is a space surrounded by a building, often surrounded by a house. There are all manner of courtyards, large, small, huge, quiet, loud. Some are open and others are terribly private. But all good courtyards have things in common. In the landscapes most of us in the US are used to, we have a house and the gardens are on the outside and we see them before we see the house. In a sense these landscapes serve mostly as dressing to enhance the outward look of the house. But a fine courtyard garden is different. It is smack in the middle of the house and the house surrounds it. It is not wide open to the world, but instead is a place to get away from it all, a place to be outside, but not to be out in the open. The best courtyards are open to the sky, have water, vines, a multitude of interesting flowers, trees, potted plants. A large number of the very finest courtyard plants are discussed in detail in this excellent book. I was struck by how interesting the numerous photos and designs were. Profusely illustrated, each one serves a definitive purpose. I was struck too, by how many different things go into the making of a well thought out courtyard. What is involved so that it will be warm in the winter and cool in the hot summer. What is involved so that it becomes a place where people want to be. I took many notes as I read this large book and some day I plan to build a house of my own design, and in the middle of it, I'm going to have a courtyard. And in this courtyard, I'll have all the things needed, the ingredients so carefully detailed here, that make the right courtyard a magical place. I'd recommend this book for anyone who ever plans to build their own home, for all landscape designers, for all architects, for anyone with a serious interest in horticulture and design. An excellent book.