Art Installation / Courtyard Research

The illusion of 3D typography is one of my favorite uses of art installations in any cultural buildings in art museums. This one by Sebastian Lemm, piqued my interest because how it gave off a unique sense on tricking our eyesight on if it's there but it's not there. By the time you start looking both ways, you can appreciate the work put into the design and placement added for further detail. To me it feels like how people nowadays just pass by beautiful objects hidden in plain sight and how materialistic things remain after we've left them behind and basically life goes on. Wake up, get up, get out!






A courtyard is a circumscribed area, often surrounded by a building or complex, that is open to the sky. Such spaces in inns and public buildings were often the primary meeting places for some purposes, leading to the other meanings of court. Both of the words court and yard derive from the same root, meaning an enclosed space.

Courtyards—private open spaces surrounded by walls or buildings—have been in use in residential architecture for almost as long as people have lived in constructed dwellings. The courtyard house makes its first appearance ca. 6400–6000 BC (calibrated), in the  Neolithic Yarmukian site at Sha'ar HaGolan, in the central Jordan Valley, on the northern bank of the Yarmouk River, giving the site a special significance in architectural history. Courtyards have historically been used for many purposes including cooking, sleeping, working, playing, gardening, and even places to keep animals. 

Before courtyards, open fires were kept burning in a central place within a home, with only a small hole in the ceiling overhead to allow smoke to escape. Over time, these small openings were enlarged and eventually led to the development of the centralized open courtyard we know today. Courtyard homes have been designed and built throughout the world with many variations.

Courtyard homes are more prevalent in temperate climates, as an open central court can be an important aid to cooling house in warm weather. However, courtyard houses have been found in harsher climates as well for centuries. The comforts offered by a courtyard—air, light, privacy, security, and tranquility—are properties nearly universally desired in human housing.