The pleasures of urban living rarely incude a big yard, but even a compact outdoor space can provide outdoor fun. The pocket courtyards featured here offer their owners a place to entertain, garden, cook out, and even host impromptu concerts. In the absence of horizontal space, architects and designers look up for inspiration. Walls become planters and grade changes turn into multipurpose terraces. Washington, D.C.-based architect Rick Harlan Schneider sees another advantage to making the most of tiny yards: “The thing I like about places like this,” he says, “is that they let a house feel bigger than it is.” “The owner really likes to garden,” architect Rick Harlan Schneider says about this Washington, D.C., renovation. “But even with a tiny garden there wouldn’t have been room for sitting or entertaining.” Instead of partitioning off space on the floor for plants, Schneider designed green walls. Sustainably harvested cedar planks are spaced far enough apart to insert movable hanging planters and the enclosure is thick enough for a perimeter of plants on top. Metal fabricator Charles Danely made the custom planters as well as similarly flexible candle holders that generate mood lighting for evening soirees. A brick fire pit with a grill top was built into the courtyard wall, and a cedar plank serves as a built-in bench. Schneider further preserved the 250-square-foot courtyard’s precious floor space by specing double glass doors that swing into the kitchen.
Builder: Ark Contracting, Washington, D.C.; Architect: Inscape Studio, Washington, D.C.; Metal fabricator: CJD Design, Northern Neck, Va.; Photographer: Stephanie Gross
