Andrés Duany asked for Courtyard Cottages very early in the Katrina Cottages timeline. If built off-site, these would be assembled from multiple modules. Some could even be two stories, such as the New Orleans courtyard house illustrated below.
Surrounding two (as pictured) or three sides of a courtyard creates a level of privacy that the stockade fences around suburban back yards can never create. But the privacy is of little value if the courtyard is not beautiful enough to entice you out into it to use it. Techniques for making courtyards charming have nearly been lost in the six decades we have been building on large suburban lots, but these plans work to revive them.
