COURTYARD

The architectural studio heri&salli created an artificial landscape broken into fragments for a courtyard of a private developer. Some spaces are not meant to be filled with nature: there is little light, poor air quality, and the room itself is narrow and uncomfortable. Like a Viennese building dating to the late nineteenth century, a very small, narrow courtyard served as ventilation for two vertically arranged wet areas. The quality is purely functional, with no added value. Mental realities of nature, such as plants, light, and water, are introduced into the courtyard through fragmented pieces of artificial lawn that subsequently disintegrate like falling leaves. Like a dress turned inward, the outer space becomes an inner space on the outside, colored and soft. Perception is central; function is casual; architecture is experience. The intervention transforms a derelict light well into a poetic, layered micro-landscape that challenges conventional expectations of what a city courtyard can be. By fragmenting the artificial lawn and distributing it across the narrow vertical space, the designers create an abstracted version of nature that responds to the courtyard's limitations rather than fighting them. The result is a surprising and meditative space that gives residents a connection to greenery even in the most constrained urban conditions, demonstrating how thoughtful design can extract beauty from overlooked interstitial spaces.