House of Three Shadows

The client asked for a garden house in a climate that punishes gardens. Our answer was to break the plot into three courtyards — morning, noon and evening — each shaded by a different mass of the house, so there is always one outdoor room the sun has already left.

Walls are 60-centimetre insulated cavity construction with a lime-washed finish; the thermal lag carries the night's coolness deep into the afternoon. Glazing faces courtyards only. The street sees a quiet wall and a door.

Measured over its first summer, the deepest courtyard held eight degrees below street temperature at 15:00 without a single machine running — the oldest air conditioning there is.