FORM / STUDIO

05 / 12Ghent, BelgiumResidential2025

Courtyard House

A white-walled courtyard with brick paving, a wooden bench and a long grate.

An inner-block plot with no street front and neighbours on all four sides. So the house looks inward: four low wings around one paved room open to the sky.

Location
Ghent, Belgium
Year
2025
Project type
Residential
Status
Completed
Surface area
154 m²
Scope
New build behind an existing terrace
Planting
Studio H. (fictional)

Fictional project. Photographs are illustrative stock and do not show a building by FORM Studio.

Site

Access is a passage between two terraced houses, 2.8 metres wide. Behind it was a roofless workshop filling almost the whole plot. Ghent’s rules for inner-block building allow one storey and ask for planted open space, which rules out a conventional house and suggests this one.

The roofs slope down towards the court. From the neighbours’ upstairs windows, you see tile, then planting, and very little of the house.

D01Ground floorPlanIllustrative drawing
Ground floor: illustrative floor planIllustrative plan of about 14.00 by 13.00 metres containing Entrance, Kitchen, Dining, Study, Living, Bedroom, Bathroom, Principal bedroom. The numbered key beside the drawing lists each room.Court123456783.001.602.601.801.004.0014.004.005.004.00AAN05 m
  1. 1Entrance11.2 m²
  2. 2Kitchen22.8 m²
  3. 3Dining18.9 m²
  4. 4Study14.1 m²
  5. 5Living18.9 m²
  6. 6Bedroom17.4 m²
  7. 7Bathroom9.6 m²
  8. 8Principal bedroom25.9 m²

Planting

With the sun above the south roof for only five hours in June, the planting list was written for shade. The white walls do the rest, throwing reflected light back through the glazed sides of the kitchen and study.

A narrow white courtyard with ferns and large-leafed plants on a stone floor.
Fig. 1 The court from the kitchen door. Ferns and hostas: nothing here needs full sun.
D02Massing around the courtAxonometricIllustrative drawing
Massing around the court: illustrative axonometricAxonometric of four low wings wrapped around an open central court.
D03Section A–ASectionIllustrative drawing
Section A–A: illustrative sectionIllustrative section cut through the building, 3.8 metres to the highest point.StudyLiving+0.00+2.5005 m
A white metal bench among terracotta pots and small trees in a walled courtyard.
Fig. 2 South corner, by the bedroom door.
A paved courtyard with potted plants, a small round table and a planted boundary.
Fig. 3 The boundary wall, retained from the workshop and limewashed.

Material schedule

  1. M01

    Reclaimed brick

    Court paving

    Lifted from the old workshop floor on the same site and relaid on sand, so rainwater still drains where it always did.

  2. M02

    Limewash

    All court-facing walls

    Three coats on masonry. It will need redoing in ten years, and it is meant to.