House Around a Courtyard of Water

Taking the form of a protective enclosure structured around a body of water, this project is a dwelling built near the seaside. The house is settled within a densely planted perimeter and formed of two primary floors. At its lower level, the house is expressed in alternating expanses of stone and shuttered openings, forming a shaded sequence of spaces between the edges of an inner courtyard of reflective pools and an outward boundary of gardens. At its upper level, the house is revealed as an elevated monolith of textured concrete brick where measured openings, often obscured behind open masonry coursework and semi porous teak wood shutters, reorient attention from the courtyard and garden perimeter toward framed views over the desert interior and to the sea. Drawing on both regional vernacular and contemporary ideas of space and material to forge a tranquil sanctuary, allowing daily life to unfold in harmony with its time and place.