MOTOR COURTYARD DETAIL

1)      Courtyard designing is not this home designer’s, that is 

a)     landscape courtyards for privacy, yes, but

b)     not driving courtyards

c)      although you can’t always do what you do, sometimes you gotta do what you don’t, wherewith, you document to the nth  
 

Comment:  Herewith, the Architectural Review Board overseeing exterior design plans had to have a firm sense of the driving courtyard in the overall house plan design and there wasn’t a landscape architect to be found any time soon.  So the author did the guide dog thing for subsequent refinement by another whose day job it is to get it done right.

Motor Courtyard Wall Design Guidelines

2)     Just as truly, this home designer has seen more thoughtless driveway and parking layout than he’d ever expected.  Saw ‘em.  Driven ‘em.
 

3)     Fortuitously, there are some excellent guidelines about driveways and such in Architectural Graphic Standards, 10th Edition, Ramsey/Sleeper, John Wiley and Sons, Inc. 2000, p.106ff.

Motor Courtyard Wall Design, Plan View

Comment:  Legend, Key, and Annotations are too extensive to include simply and, in this designer's opinion, would detract from the central notion that leaving it up to others without forethought from whatever your discipline need not be your  chosen path - you may be able to benefit yourself with new knowledge and understanding and, as in this instance, maintain and in some ways enhance the home's design without meddling in stuff you don't do for a living.

4)     Given -

a)     A porte-cochère passage between drive and courtyard

b)     Requirement to enter the Courtyard and start left with having to sharply miss the entry portico straight ahead on the right

c)      An interest in easily turning left into to 2 left-hand garage bays on the left, at right angle to the house (no chance to make it to the nearest bay with a backing maneuver

d)     Space enough to back from any of the three bays and still leave room for some parking behind

Comment: Ramsey/Sleeper, ibid., particularly in regard to driveways and such, provide thoughtful, useful guidance on spatial tolerances for older drivers.

e)     Enough surface area for all but the largest of passenger vehicles to make it once around the courtyard without backing

f)       The need

i)       To wall off the courtyard in order to respect an ungraded, significant pitch beyond the courtyard on both sides and

ii)    Still to make its shape interesting

g)     Let for aging drivers

h)    Objective to alert the landscape architect of those matters of concern to the guy whose gone before